Critics: Jayapal Conducting Private Diplomacy to Undermine Trump Oil Sanctions on Cuba

Far-left Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington is under fire for possibly violating the Logan Act by engaging in private conversations with foreign countries about shipping oil to Cuba.

The congresswoman apparently thinks she can pursue private diplomacy to overturn President Trump’s decision to stop oil shipments to the Caribbean communist outpost after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

While the Logan Act forbids Americans from freelance diplomacy, Japayal claims she has the “right” and duty to do so. Taxpayers funded her trip to Cuba.

Poor Cuba

Jayapal’s anti-American sympathies have been clear for years, and in a video she posted to X, she didn’t disappoint her fellow anti-American camp followers.

“In January, Trump issued an executive order threatening tariffs on any country supplying fuel to Cuba,” the Indian immigrant explained:

This was this January — just a few months ago. And oil shipments from Venezuela, that’s where Cuba had been getting its oil, were halted after the U.S. operations to kidnap Nicolás Maduro. Since January, only one Russian tanker of oil has made it to Cuba. 

That tanker, she continued, landed in the isle just before she did, and that one tanker carries only enough oil for 10 to 14 days of Cubans’ needs.

Jayapal then confessed to possibly violating the Logan Act.

“I was in conversations with the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I know other countries in Latin America are trying to figure out how to get oil there,” she continued:

But it is a crisis beyond imagination. Just this past Friday, on May 1st, Trump signed a broad executive order that widens sanctions and allows for new penalties similar to what we have for Iran and Russia, against foreign banks and firms that are dealing with Cuba. And it also reinforces the ban on U.S. tourism. I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the infrastructure of Cuba.

Jayapal claimed that economic sanctions are little different than militarily bombing Iran’s infrastructure. 

While economic sanctions and threatening a nation’s economic health can be construed as acts of war, that doesn’t explain Jayapal’s becoming a diplomatic mercenary, running thither and yon across the globe privately discussing U.S. policy with foreign diplomats and other officials.

GOP Senator Rick Scott of Florida, whose constituents include almost 2 million Cubans, fumed on X that Jayapal was helping a communist enemy.

“DISTURBING: @RepJeffries and @HouseDemocrats, members of your party are OPENLY admitting to aiding a communist adversary in coordination with foreign countries to VIOLATE American sanctions,” he wrote on X:

@POTUS put those sanctions in place to keep Americans SAFE and to hold the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime accountable for their crimes.

Trump Derangement Syndrome should never come before national security.

“Breaking News,“ Jayapal replied on X to critics:

Members of Congress meet with ambassadors of other countries every day. That’s literally our right and responsibility.

Jayapal’s Deranged Anti-Americanism

The Logan Act is clear: American citizens cannot negotiate with foreign countries. Doing so can carry a fine and three-year prison term:

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.

Being an immigrant from India, perhaps Jayapal doesn’t believe the law applies to her. That aside, her sentiments about Americans, notably those who enforce immigration law, are clear.

“ICE is acting like a terrorist force,” she said in July when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were rounding up illegal-alien rapists and murderers:

People across the country of all legal statuses — including U.S. citizens — are being kidnapped and disappeared off the street by masked men.

No oversight, no accountability. Completely lawless.

ICE “kidnapped” no one, but anyway, Jayapal not only believes that ICE agents are terrorists, but also that she has a right to conduct her own immigration policy.

In 2018, she bragged about importing illegal aliens under the guise of being refugees, and apparently thinks that they, not the residents of her district, are her constituents. Indeed, illegals seem to be something of a sacred cow for the congresswoman.

“I was able to successfully assist 5 asylum seekers — 2 unaccompanied minors, a mother and her 9 year old child, and a young man with a serious medical condition — into the United States.”

Jayapal did not divulge how she knew the asylum claims were genuine.

“Initially they were denied, in violation of U.S. and international law,” Jayapal opined, “but I was able to intervene and ensure that they could simply present themselves for asylum in the United States.”

And she huffed, “it shouldn’t take intervention from a Member of Congress and an incredibly compassionate Border Patrol Chief for those fleeing violence and persecution to seek asylum in the United States.”

Jayapal is no angel herself when it comes to “persecution.” Staffers claim she is a tyrant who has set up something of a caste system in her office.

“They described Jayapal as a boss who berated staff in front of others, demanded grueling hours, and maintained an office culture marked by constantly changing expectations and little tolerance for error, to the extent that some staffers sought therapy and questioned their careers in public service,” Buzzfeed News reported in 2021:

Since taking office, Jayapal has had one of the highest staff turnover rates in the House, due in large part, former employees said, to the unrealistic standards she sets. “It’s not sustainable to be able to stay for too long,” one said….

“I’ve worked in bad environments before, and I have worked in some awful environments before for some awful people. I’ve been colleagues with some awful people,” one former Jayapal staffer said. “I have never worked in a place that has made me so miserable and so not excited for public service as Pramila Jayapal’s office.”

Other Democratic Subversives

As far as the Logan Act or perhaps even treason goes, Jayapal isn’t the first far-left Democrat to attempt to undermine U.S. foreign policy. In 1983, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts approached the Soviet KGB to explain that he would do what he could to stop the re-election of President Ronald Reagan.

“In a letter addressed to then-Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov, dated May 14, 1983, KGB head Viktor Chebrikov explained that Kennedy was eager to ‘counter the militaristic policies’ of Reagan, who defeated Carter as the Republican nominee, and to undermine his prospects for re-election in 1984,” the Daily Signal explains:

Kennedy was considering another run for president in 1988, but did not rule out running in 1984, Chebrikov informed Andropov in the letter.

Kennedy suggested he could work with the American news media to help organize favorable American press coverage for Andropov and other Soviet officials, according to the 1983 letter.…

Going a step further, according to the letter, Kennedy then offered up the possibility of having top media personalities such as Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters, and Elton Raul, president of the board of the ABC television network, travel to Moscow to do television interviews with Andropov.

But just as Kennedy got away with the vehicular homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne, he got away with actively seeking to help a foreign power against American interests.