Section 3 of the Constitution: "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. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason...."
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The problem with the Mueller investigation was its limited design. In effect Mueller was told to look for a criminal conspiracy between Trump and the Russians to throw the 2016 election.
Conspiracy is exceptionately hard to prove. (I've taught criminal law and practiced it.) Remember the Monty Python routines about "nudge, nudge" and "wink, wink"? People can agree to commit a crime together without saying a word. As in "silent assent". That means there may be no evidence of their agreement.
Because Trump and his cohorts actually committed treason vis-a-vis the Russians, there didn't have to be even a nudge or a wink. All that needed to happen was that the Trump people would know what the Russians were doing and choose to look away.
That explains all the documented lying by Trump and his people. Why in the world would they risk prison just to lie to investigators about contacts with Russians when (according to Mueller) there was no conspiracy going on. They lied because they didn't want anyone to know THAT THEY KNEW what the Russians were doing. Look back at what we see in the public record, a litany of "we weren't there", "we didn't talk on the phone", "I don't know any Russians". All those lies were in order to distance themselves from the Russians. They were distancing themselves from men and women who were poised to destroy America by destroying its election process.
In effect, Trump and his cohorts watched an enemy of America place an enormous load of explosives under the Statue of Liberty. And then didn't tell about what they had seen. In actuality the Russians were trying to blow up the American election process; the Trump coterie watched this and said nothing. In fact, Trump said he believed Putin's denials of Russian involvement.
Russia was attacking us electronically. Just as when Japan became our enemy by attacking Pearl Harbor, the 2016 electronic attack on our election process makes Russia our enemy for purposes of the definition of treason. Electronic attacks can be far more dangerous than attacks with guns or bombs. Yet the media and the political establishment seem strangely unwilling to accept this reality.
The second major element required is that the accused has provided "aid and comfort" to the enemy and has "adhered" to the enemy. Isn't that precisely what Trump and his associates have done vis-a-vis the Russians? Trump has made "adhering" to Putin practically a full time job! He not only gushes over him but takes Putin's word on security matters instead of believing our American intelligence agencies.
And Trump and his minions have done an enormous amount of aiding and abetting just by doing nothing. They knew that the Russians were meddling in our election; that has been established. Knowing this, Trump and his associates should have warned the FBI or other law enforcement agency. They had a legal burden, an affirmative duty, to warn such authorities. Trump and some of the others were solemnly swearing to protect the country and the Constitution. That, my friends, created an enormous duty to give warning of what the Russians were doing or had done.
Mueller and his hard-working team were walking the wrong road. Sure, they were good attorneys, hard-working and conscientious, but they had been set off on the wrong road. Somebody needed to think outside that box they'd been put in, the "conspiracy" box, and see the big picture. Somebody had to say, "It's treason." Nobody did.
Maybe nobody wanted to. Maybe they were all afraid to say it.
"None dare call it treason?" You've probaby heard that expression. (See foonote 1 below) It sure seems to carry some truth. How many treason cases do you remember hearing about?
Treason is indeed a rare beast. This rarity has perhaps made it seem a silly accusation, not something grown-ups talk about. Also we are rightly ashamed of our use of it in the past: in rounding up American citizens and jailing them in camps without due process because they were of Japanese descent. Or prosecuting and persecuting actors, writers, ministers and Girl Scout leaders because they were accused of being Communists.
The result of this history is that none dare call anything treason since the actual witch-hunting of the 1950s Communist scare. And that refusal to call anything treason is to our loss and to the country's loss.
Because what Trump and his minions did was in fact treason, the sole crime discussed in the Constitution.
Perhaps there will now emerge a willingness to recognize that Trump and his associates have committed treason. It made a possible start three days ago in an opinion piece in the New York Times of March 22, 2019. We had all better read this opinion piece so we can remember the visciousness our country has been suffering through and reacquaint ourselves with what treason looks like. This is an excellent piece by Nicholas Bookbinder with a rather weak headline: Opinion | Release the Whole Mueller Report.
Here's a sample:
"....[T]he fact that Mr. Trump and his campaign strategists sought to benefit from a foreign adversary’s efforts to undermine our democracy is one of the greatest breaches of public trust our country has ever witnessed. If Mr. Mueller ultimately determined that indicting the president’s associates for this conduct was not appropriate, that does not mean that there should not be consequences for this outrageous breach of trust."
And the "consequences"? They have already begun to occur. I'll write about them next time and what we can do further to punish the treason.
Meantime, take comfort. Most of Trump's campaign associates are headed to prison because they lied to the authorities to hide their closeness with the Russians, hoping no one might notice that they had commited the treason of not reporting that the Russians were attacking our election.
In a very real sense, Trump's pals are paying the penalty for their treason. Sometimes the universe is very just.
But what about Trump paying a penalty for betraying his country?
As I said, sometimes the universe is very just. So wait and watch.
It's coming.
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Footnote 1: "None dare call it treason" is from an epigram by Sir John Harington (sic), a colorful character in the court of the first Queen Elizabeth. The rest of the epigram is certainly relative here: "Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason." Harington also reputedly invented the flush toilet. I will refrain from any temptation to tie that to the discussion of Trump's treason.
A personal note: It's good to be back after three surgeries and a broken leg and a broken arm. The arm of course was my right arm, and I am right-handed. But I'm all patched together now. So let's get on with the fight against treason and getting rid of Trump. Which we shall do in 2020!
