jbindc: "Since the Democrats have done the same kind of things in the past, more than once, (see, for example, the 'Dear Comandante' letter), nothing will happen because then it becomes a long drawn out inside-baseball fight. This is pure political theater meant to provoke a reaction of outrage and it worked."

Rather, this is part of an open, direct, purposeful and concerted effort to undermine the present multilateral international negotiations with Iran -- no less so than inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress and do the same, without even bothering to first inform either the State Dept. or the White House of that invitation.

The enabling paragraph of the Logan Act (18 U.S. Code § 953 - Private correspondence with foreign governments) reads as follows:

"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

The U.S. Senate enjoys the authority under the Constitution to either ratify by two-thirds majority or reject any treaty that has been negotiated by the president on behalf of the United States and presented to the Senate for its approval -- emphasis on the term "has been negotiated," as in past tense and already concluded.

But as I would understand the law, what senators and any other citizens of this country are expressly NOT authorized to do is the following:

• State or imply to a foreign power that they represent the legitimate interests of the United States, without first obtaining the expressed permission or prior concurrence of the executive branch;

• Conduct private negotiations with a foreign power for private or personal purposes, without first obtaining the expressed permission or prior concurrence of the executive branch;

• Seek for personal or private purposes to represent the interests of a foreign power, either in this country or abroad, without first obtaining the expressed permission or prior concurrence of the executive branch; or

• Otherwise seek to interfere with ongoing and legitimate diplomatic efforts of the president and his / her duly authorized representatives with respect to a foreign power, for the purpose of either hindering or sabotaging his / her present relations and / or negotiations with that foreign power.

In so doing, their personal conduct disrespects the Constitution's provisions regarding the separation of powers, and jeopardizes the country's national security on an issue no less than nuclear proliferation. Their open disdain and thinly veiled hatred for this president has led them to cross a boundary which no citizen, regardless of his / her position and rank, should ever breach. By all rights, there can and perhaps should be legal consequences for those actions.

And if you find that to be entertaining, given the present high stakes involved here, then you are clearly detached from the reality of the present situation, and are someone whose false equivalencies and frivolous opinions should not be taken seriously in this particular public discussion.

Cotton stands revealed as a true fanatic. He's stalwart in his convictions as regards things about which he knows exactly dick. What he and practically every Republican in the Senate did was nothing short of a slow-motion, partial coup d'etat. It was not quite treason, and it was not quite a violation of the Logan Act, no matter how dearly some of us might wish it was. (Imagine the howls if the Justice Department actually inquired into that possibility, which it certainly has a right to do. Lindsey Graham might never rise from the fainting couch.) But it stands in history with Richard Nixon's grotesque sabotage of the Paris Peace Talks in 1968 and with whatever it was that the Reagan campaign did to monkeywrench the possible release of the American hostages from their captivity in Iran in 1980. It is an act of unconscionable and perilous presumption, reckless at its base and heedless of eventual consequences. Nobody elected Tom Cotton or the rest of these clowns to undermine the ability of this president to conduct foreign policy. (Nobody elected Bibi Netanyahu to do it, either, as sad as this might make Jen Rubin.) It long has been acceptable on the respectable American right to call this president practically anything. It now is acceptable on the respectable American right to do anything to thwart his ability to conduct his office. A twice-elected president must bow to the uneducated whims of the representative of 478,819 Arkansans. We have fallen through the looking glass and left it far behind.

And if you want to really a Senator intervening:

If these progressives want to know what actual treason looks like, they should consult liberal lion Ted Kennedy, who not only allegedly sent secret messages to the Soviets in the midst of the cold war, he also begged them to intervene in a U.S. presidential election in order to unseat President Ronald Reagan. That's no exaggeration.

According to Soviet documents unearthed in the early 1990′s, Kennedy literally asked the Soviets, avowed enemies of the U.S., to intervene on behalf of the Democratic party in the 1984 elections. Kennedy's communist communique was so secret that it was not discovered until 1991, eight years after Kennedy had initiated his Soviet gambit:

PINE LAWN (KMOV.com) - Anthony Gray seemed to be everywhere. As an attorney for Mike Brown's family, Gray received international attention, blasting the city of Ferguson and insisting Officer Darren Wilson should be arrested for killing Brown.

However, at the same time Gray was turning up the heat on Ferguson, he was also the Director of Public Safety, and commonly referred to as the police chief, of nearby Pine Lawn. Pine Lawn is a small, impoverished, nearly all black community with a police department widely considered to be one of the worst in the St. Louis region.

Gray was in charge of the Pine Lawn Police Department for most of 2014. His top commander was Steve Blakeney, a cop who has been accused of raping one woman, punching another, and was accused of harassing residents who repeatedly filed complaints against him. Blakeney has denied all the allegations made against him.

[...]

Before becoming Pine Lawn's equivalent of a police chief, Gray was the city prosecutor, a critical role in the town's approach to collecting massive amounts of money through its municipal court.  He has now resumed his role as the town's prosecutor. In 2013 and 2014, Pine Lawn collected $3.5 million in court fines and fees, which accounted for almost half the city's general revenue.

We use it at work.  For straight text, like a book, it works well, but for things like spreadsheets and tax forms it sucks because it decides what characters are being scanned.

I would imagine they have access to better scanners and OCR software, but if there isn't a clean original, it's not going to 'translate' very well.

Why would State ask for paper when everyone else's emails are in electronic format ?  I don't know either way, but electronic format would be the preferred choice for any amount of data IMO.

I don't think it's for spite, it is so they can't be readily searched.  This isn't a fact gathering mission, this is a witch hunt, there is no reason to make it easy for them.  They could have electronic copies in the hands of a hundred people by days end, and thoroughly searched for a list of key words an hour later.

But point taken about now knowing if the State Dept. insisted on paper...that does sound like the kind of wasteful stupidity I've come to expect from my government.  

   " ....I shall continue to regard the vocation of raking scandal out of graveyards [referring to Wolfe's being a private detective] as an especially vile method of making a living...."

  In other words, it is an admonition not to let a general comment expressing a point of view [ and implicitly also the fact the person has such a point of view]   color your judgment about other facets of the person who made the comment.