Trump's helping Moscow muck with our elections fits the strict constitutional definition of treason

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/24/1921475/-Trump-s-helping-Moscow-muck-with-our-elections-fits-the-strict-constitutional-definition-of-treason

Trump's helping Moscow muck with our elections fits the strict constitutional definition of treason
Meteor Blades
Daily Kos Staff
Monday February 24, 2020 · 10:49 AM EST
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Throughout the history of the Republic, traitorous and treasonous have held a broader, more generic meaning for treason than the one found in the U.S. Constitution. The rebellious founders, having themselves been traitors to the British Crown—and being fully familiar with how English treason laws had been extended and abused in what was then the not-very-distant past—the drafters wisely kept to the narrowest of definitions in the first paragraph of Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

snip//

What Trump has done, what he is now doing, meets the strict definition of treason in the Constitution. No doubt the lawyers will tell me I am full of it. That including cyberwarfare as the same as a declared war is bogus, even though we’ve had plenty of wars but none declared since 1942. They’ll also remind me what just happened with the impeachment vote in the Senate.

No way will Trump ever be tried for treason, of course, so why bother to bring it up? Because Trump is a traitor. Because he’s thrown open the door to bad actors, not sneakily the way he has done so many things, but in broad daylight. This isn’t speculation about something that will happen someday down the road. It’s happening right damn now.

Trump knows the Republican He-Did-It-So-What? Caucus will never convict him for treason or anything else. If it got as far as another impeachment, Alan Dershowitz would argue that Trump can order the strafing of an entire U.S. Army division on Fifth Avenue and not be liable for prosecution. The GOP would have no trouble if Trump made a deal for Russia to write software for swing state voting machines and made a fat commission off it.

Trump’s protectors will shield him no matter what and he will do whatever. The word for that in these circumstances isn’t supporters, it’s accomplices. If the constitutional machinery of the Republic is inadequate to oust this traitor, if he can’t be defeated at the polls or won’t leave office if he is defeated, then “street politics” will be all that remains. That’s far from a happy prospect.

[TwilightZone]

1. The author seems to conflate being a traitor with treason. They are not interchangeable terms.

If the Rosenbergs couldn't even be tried for treason during the Cold War, Trump in the current context more than likely doesn't qualify either.

[struggle4progress]

2. K+R

[Voltaire2]

3. We aren't at war with Russia.

So until we are, it ain’t treason. It might be “just like treason, except”, but it is the exceptions, no matter how much you claim they don’t matter that really do matter when it comes to applying a specific law to a specific act.

[Wednesdays]

4. So, let's say Thomas Jefferson, when he was president

made a secret treaty with Great Britain. The deal includes British troops landing on our shores and occupying our cities, and they proceed to take over the country. There's no declaration of war. That's not treason?

[Voltaire2]

5. It depends.

Once they took over the country it obviously wouldn't be treason as they would be in control. Prior to the successful take over we would be in a state of war even if there had been no declaration and certainly Jefferson could be charged with treason for his overt acts each witnessed by two other people.

If you wish to argue that we are in a state of war with Russia, please do so, but it is an odd state of war where we have full diplomatic relationships, trade (even though with sanctions), and where Russian and American citizens are free to travel to each other's country.

[melm00se]

6. Treason

If you have never explored it, Cornell's Legal Information Institute is a great resource for many things legal.

I have used (and use) it as a launch site for US Constitution research.

Here is what it has to say on "treason":

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-3/clause-1/treason

[Vinca]

7. Doesn't matter. Republicans in the Senate view him as king and he can do anything.