The Logan Act of 1799, is found in US CODE,TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 45, Section 953.  Private correspondence with foreign governments.  It states that:

             "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.

              This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects."

There is only one Chief of State identified in the US Constitution.  It is the President of the United States.  It would seem to follow that authorization to interact directly with a foreign government must come from the President or an official to whom he has delegated authority to do so - one would normally think that would be the Secretary of State, not the Speaker of the House or the Majority Leader of the Senate or, for that matter, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court..

Fact-finding trips are one thing - and good Congressional oversight demands it.  Going to another nation to meet with its leaders after the President of the United States, under his Constitutional authority as head of state, has specifically said that it should not be done, would seem to be inconsistent with the meaning of the Logan Act.  

To be fair, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.  Members of Congress from both parties, and sometimes private citizens,  have, over time, made similar trips against the express wishes of a sitting President.  

Yet, there are no punitive consequences for these repeated violations of US law.

There is also only one Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.  That is also the President of the United States as specified by the Constitution.  That constitutional designation also does not include the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the Senate, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

But we see members of Congress attempting through legislative act to specify troop movements and establish deadlines for ending military presence or engagement in a military conflict. The House of Representatives can use its Constitutional authority to fund, or refuse to fund, any program.  But to use that power as a way to blackmail any President of the United States into changing military strategy or tactics in contravention of the best intelligence and military expertise available to him, should be immediately declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and widely condemned by the Press.  Not happening.  Not likely to happen.

There should not be a larger picture that that.  But there is.  

We have already seen the impunity enjoyed by illegal immigrants - given colorful names that sound innocuous. Undocumented workers. Guest workers. Necessary to the very survival of the US economy.  Do not enforce the law.  Logan Act violations happening over and over, do  not enforce the law.  Steal classified documents from the National Archives, get a slap on the wrist.  Make a misstatement to the FBI, go directly to jail, do not pass go.  Spend millions of dollars investigating a supposed crime, determine early that no crime has been committed, but keep on going anyway spending those millions. No indictments are even possible for a non-crime, but somebody must go to jail to justify all those millions spent. Travesties all.

The Rule of Law, upon which our freedoms are ultimately based, is being flouted in many very public ways.

At some point, one can imagine the silent law-abiding citizens of the United States will have a belly full of this flagrant behavior and there will not be enough law enforcement personnel to stop the mass lawbreaking which might then occur.  We can finger-point all we want.  It is not the Democrat party..  It is not the Republican party.  It is not the Press.  It is our leaders.  All of them.  From both parties.  Forgetting their oaths of office, ignoring the Constitution and laws they are sworn to enforce.  Forgetting that politics stops at the waters edge.  Forgetting that bullets make people bleed and die on both sides of a conflict.  Forgetting that if you want to defend freedom, a way of life, the sanctity of citizenship, the blessings of nationhood, then bleeding and dying are sometimes necessary.
 
When will we see a Chief Executive and Congress - all sworn to uphold, enforce, and defend the laws of the United States - begin to do just that?????  Or will we?  And if not, what then? Could be Anarchy.  Will likely not be democracy as we know it.  Or maybe we will collectively decide that our way of life is not worth saving and simply succumb to whatever power decides to take us over and mold us to their ways.  That seems to be more likely.