MAGA lawmaker’s Trump defiance may put him behind bars: GOP candidate

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) openly defied President Donald Trump Sunday night in calling for Israel to launch strikes toward Iran, a remark that flew in the face of the president’s foreign policy agenda — and, according to a GOP congressional candidate, may have violated federal law.

Iran launched strikes against Israel Sunday in response to that nation's bombing of Lebanon’s largest city, strikes that Trump urged Israeli leadership not to respond to. Despite Trump’s plea, Israel's missiles flew later that night, the news of which excited Fine, who proceeded to encourage Israel to continue.

“Israel has every right to respond to rockets being fired at its civilians exactly as we would,” Fine wrote Sunday night in a social media post on X. “Bombs away.”

Fine’s comments, however, at least according to Aaron Baker, who’s running to represent Florida’s 6th Congressional District as a Republican, may have violated the Logan Act, which prohibits Americans from holding unauthorized communications with foreign governments in some instances, particularly with intent to “influence measures or conduct of any foreign government.”

“Now you are telling [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu ‘bombs away?’ President Trump told Bibi NO,” Baker wrote in a social media post on X. “Now you have violated The Logan Act, Rep. Fine, and shall be fined or imprisoned under 18 USC 953. So much for trying to pretend you’re loyal to the United States.”

Fine has long been a fierce defender and supporter of Israel, though he has frequently drawn scrutiny for his controversial remarks, which critics, even some prominent conservatives, have described as “unspeakably racist” or “genocidal."

Examples include Fine telling Gazans to ‘starve away’ last year. In 2021 when, in response to a social media user who shared a photo of what appears to be a Gazan infant buried in rubble with the question “how do you sleep at night,” Fine responded “quite well, actually,” and “thanks for the pic!”