If you’re a Trump fan, don’t take this personally. Undermining the United States by negotiating independently with foreign powers is just who John Kerry is.

If Bob Mueller can bring FARA back from the dead to indict Paul Manafort, surely Jeff Sessions can bring the Logan Act back from the dead to put an end to Waffles’s freelance diplomatic career.

During the conversation, according to the report, Kerry asked [Hussein] Agha to convey a message to [Mahmoud] Abbas and ask him to “hold on and be strong.” Tell him, he told Agha, “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump’s demands.” According to Kerry, Trump will not remain in office for a long time. It was reported that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House. Kerry offered his help to the Palestinians in an effort to advance the peace process and recommended that Abbas present his own peace plan. “Maybe it is time for the Palestinians to define their peace principles and present a positive plan,” Kerry suggested. He promised to use all his contacts and all his abilities to get support for such a plan. He asked Abbas, through Agha, not to attack the US or the Trump administration, but to concentrate on personal attacks on Trump himself, whom Kerry says is solely and directly responsible for the situation. According to the report, referring to the president, Kerry used derogatory terms and even worse. Kerry offered to help create an alternative peace initiative and promised to help garner international support, among others, of Europeans, Arab states and the international community. Kerry hinted that many in the American establishment, as well as in American intelligence, are dissatisfied with Trump’s performance and the way he leads America. He surprised his interlocutor by saying he was seriously considering running for president in 2020. When asked about his advanced age, he said he was not much older than Trump and would not have an age problem.

Would Kerry undermine Trump? Uh, sure. As I say, he was negotiating with foreign agents on and off for decades before he became Secretary of State and finally gained the legal authority to do so. Obama alumni loathe Trump and in particular loathe his Middle East policies, from his contempt for their big nuclear “achievement” with Iran to his coziness with Netanyahu to his insistence on moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Much of the left is also operating under the goofy assumption that Trump’s not going to serve out his full term due to Russiagate or (giggle) the 25th Amendment. It’s possible that this story has been blown out of proportion, that Kerry did meet with Agha and said a few anodyne things about not giving up on the process and somehow it metastasized into a sensational tale of Obama’s chief diplomat sabotaging Trump’s leverage in the region. But let’s put it this way: *If* a top Democrat were going to knife POTUS in the back abroad, this is exactly the guy you’d expect to do it and the Israeli/Palestinian peace process is exactly the topic you’d expect him to do it for. It has the ring of truth, shall we say, and we know from media darling Michael Wolff that if something rings true, it is true.

But wait. Isn’t there an obvious bit of fiction stuck in there, a clue that the whole story is dubious? Surely John Kerry’s not thinking of running for president in 2020. He’s old! He lost once before! And the 2020 Democratic field will be packed, especially if Trump continues to look vulnerable. Obviously Kerry never said he was thinking of running again … did he?

Let me jog your memory. December 2016:

John Kerry says in a new interview that he briefly thought about entering the 2016 presidential race, but decided he wanted to remain secretary of State. “For a minute or two, maybe somewhere along the line, it crossed my mind — possibly,” Kerry told the Boston Globe.

He was thinking about it before the last election! But he had two king-sized problems in Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. At least one, if not both, were sure to run; both were higher-profile Democrats than Kerry was; and unlike Kerry, neither had lost a general election before. Realistically there was no way he would get past them in a primary. In 2020, though, there’s a good chance that neither will be in the field. (Biden’s a year older than Kerry and might not run.) The biggest name out there at the moment is Bernie Sanders, who’s also older than Kerry and isn’t guaranteed to run. Without Bernie or Biden, the Democratic field might be dominated by two senators with relatively little governing experience, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Waffles might look at that, sense some nostalgia among Democrats for the Obama administration, and conclude he’s got a shot at redemption after 2004. Crazier things have happened. I mean, Donald Trump is president.

In fact, Joe Scarborough asked a freakishly botoxed Kerry about this just a few months ago. You’re not running in 2020, right, John? Quote:

“I don’t have any plans right now.” Wut?

The inescapable conclusion: The story about his meeting with the Palestinian is *at least* as true as “Fire & Fury” is and Kerry should be indicted for violating the Logan Act. Exit question: If he’s willing to be this treacherous in sabotaging Trump’s diplomacy with Abbas, how far might he and other Obama cronies be willing to go if Trump blows up the nuclear deal and gets confrontational with Iran?