Not necessarily. The purpose of some laws are entrapment, getting the ability to harass, prosecute, or in general make life difficult for certain people. Some function as catch-alls to be able to slap arbitrarily high number of charges onto someone.
I have an extremely difficult time believing that a past member of the legislative branch of the government is unaware of a law. That's your job. To know the law.
Too many 2000-page bills. Too many "you have to pass it to know what's in it" bills. They can write it, and still not know what it says. But the hammer should fall on them for that, too, because if they had done a decent job writing it, it wouldn't be so hard to know what it says.
Indeed, the Speaker of the House is arguably the most powerful member of the legislative branch. In the disastrous event that the President and Vice-President die or are otherwise incapacitated, the Speaker is next in line to head the government. In his or her legislative capacity, the Speaker also wields a vast amount of power, (largely) deciding which legislation comes up for debate or vote, and what sort of practices are acceptable in the legislative chamber.
