Trump thumps Kerry once again over Iran Deal activism, this time on Twitter

He had criticised former US secretary of state John Kerry during his speech to the National Rifles Association (NRA) in Dallas, Texas, on May 4, over the report that the latter was conducting secret diplomacy to save the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 which is considered one of his biggest feats as the diplomat. On Monday, US President Donald Trump hit out at Kerry once again.

While Trump called Kerry's efforts on Friday as "horrible", he took to Twitter on Monday, May 7, to say: "The United States does not need John Kerry's possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!"

According to Boston Globe which carried the report on Friday that Kerry, 74, was in touch with European leaders and Iran's foreign minister in a private capacity to salvage the Iran deal which the Trump administration has called flawed and wanted to scuttle it. Kerry has also met members of the Congress towards this effect, the report added. May 12 is the deadline for Trump to decide whether to reinforce the sanctions on Iran, a move that could see tensions heightening in West Asia, fear the international community.

The 2015 deal, which was entered by the US and other major powers and the European Union with Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons against easing economic sanctions, has been criticised by the US and Israel who feel it has only given Tehran an undue advantage.

The Boston Globe said on Monday that a spokesperson of Kerry made a statement defending him after Trump's attacking tweets.

"I think every American would want every voice possible urging Iran to remain in compliance with the nuclear agreement that prevented a war," the Boston Globe report quoted Matt Summers, the spokesperson, as saying via the statement. "Secretary Kerry stays in touch with his former counterparts around the world just like every previous Secretary of State. Like America's closest allies, he believes it is important that the nuclear agreement, which took the world years to negotiate, remain effective as countries focus on stability in the region," it said.

The White House had earlier refused to respond to the episode despite being asked a number of times, the Boston Globe report said, and on Monday it that it would not say anything more beyond the US president's tweet.

Kerry has also been accused of violating the Logan Act of 1799 which deals with private citizens trying to negotiate with foreign governments with which the US has a dispute. However, none has been convicted under the law till date. Marco Rubio, the Republican senator of Florida said in a tweet that Kerry's working with foreign governments to "save the flawed #IranDeal" raised Logan Act questions. He also asked what would have the reaction been had former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had done the same to Barack Obama when he was the president.

Caliornia's Republican Representative and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Devin Nunes also considered Kerry's act to be a violation of the Logan Act.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a member of Trump's legal team which is defending him in the investigations into the alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential election also said Kerry was violating the Logan Act and nobody seemed to care. Giuliani was in the headlines recently for revealing Trump's repaying money to his attorney Michael Cohen for adult film actress Stormy Daniels with whom he allegedly had a sexual encounter in the mid-2000s.