Making the Case that Trump is Guilty of Treason

While Donald Trump is making the ridiculous claim that he "misspoke" during his joint news conference with his apparent handler, Vladimir Putin, his actions since January, 2017, and before, underscore  that there is a basis for saying that Trump is guilty of treason and should suffer all of the legal consequences.  The same may hold for a number of his GOP enablers depending on their levels of knowledge - Mitch McConnell immediately comes to mind.  A piece in the Boston Globe lays out the argument - an argument that should have true American patriots demanding that Congressional Republicans cease their complicity in Trump's misdeeds.  Here are excerpts:

Following the 2016 presidential election, a specter of treason was hovering over Donald Trump because of his response to the mounting evidence that the Russians had intervened to help elect him.

As the president-elect entered the White House, he summarily rejected the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russia had engaged in cyberwarfare against the US elections. He worked to block investigations into Russia’s actions. Trump advisers and associates had extensive political and business dealings with the Russian government before and during the 2016 presidential campaign. While there has not been any direct evidence that [Trump] the president-elect was involved in the Russian government’s actions, circumstances suggested that individuals or groups close to [Trump] the president could have aided or known about the Russian meddling.

According to the law, the federal crime of treason is committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who . . . adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” Misprision (abetting) of treason is committed if a person “having knowledge of the commission of treason conceals and does not disclose” the crime. Today the evidence of Russian cyberattacks against the US democratic process is overwhelming. On July 13, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, a Trump appointee and former Republican senator, stated that “the warning lights are blinking red again,” as they were before the 9/11 attacks, and that “the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.” This high-level warning came on the same day Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that 12 Russian agents had been indicted for hacking Democratic officials in the 2016 elections by a federal grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller. The Russian attacks began the day after Trump had openly encouraged Russia to hack the e-mails of his opponent. In response to the indictments of Russian agents last week, Trump declined to condemn the cyberattacks, nor did he indicate that he would to defend the country against them. Instead, the White House claimed that the Russian indictments exonerated the president because no Americans were accused of collusion. In the special counsel’s probe, however, four Trump campaign officials have already been charged with criminal conduct relating to the Russian cyberoffensive. Trump’s pre-summit comments implied that he would not use the tools of diplomacy, law, or military technology to defend the United States against continuing Russian cyberattacks. If true, this would be tantamount to giving aid and comfort to an enemy. Three points are being advanced to dismiss using the treason argument.

First, American liberals claim that charging Trump with treason will only play into the hands of his base, which believes that Trump is the victim of a conspiracy by the “deep state” to derail his presidency. This is shortsighted. Trump’s actions are a reflection of weakness in the face of grave threats to US security, the opposite of what one would have expected from a champion of “America First” like Ronald Reagan.

The second argument is that the United States has a history of meddling in foreign politics. This is true. But it does not diminish the need to respond decisively to the grave threat to US national security when a foreign power disrupts our democratic process. Trump continues to dismiss the intervention, encouraging its continuation by doing nothing to defend the country against it. Third, it’s worthwhile to try to improve relations with an adversary. True enough, but not at the expense of US national security. [Trump's] The president’s hostility to the US investigation of Russian cyberattacks, his failure to impose a cost on Russia for the attacks, his denigration of US alliances, and his eagerness to have “an extraordinary relationship” with the Russian leader all point toward giving aid and comfort to an enemy.

Trump Just Openly Colluded with Russia

Shockingly, today Donald Trump took the side of Vladimir Putin and Russia, a ruthless autocrat and a hostile foreign power and denounced the FBI, the CIA and America's intelligence agencies, all of which are shouting that Russia launched an attack on the United States in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election with the goal of throwing the election to Trump and subverting America's democracy.  18 United States Code Sec. 2381 defines treason as follows:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Applying this definition, Trump would appear to be guilty of treason.  He certainly is giving aid and comfort to Putin and Russia and harming the interest of the United States.  I for one feel like I am watching an espionage themed film which even five years ago would have been deemed far fetched.  A column in the Washington Post calls out Trump, although it stops short of calling Trump what he is: a traitor.  Here are column highlights:

THE ENDURING image of the U.S.-Russia summit in Helsinki on Monday will be that of President Trump standing next to Vladi­mir Putin and suggesting he found Mr. Putin’s “powerful” denial at least as persuasive as the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous finding that Russia intervened in the 2016 election. Coupled with another groundless attack on the FBI and an apparent endorsement of a patently disingenuous offer by Mr. Putin to collaborate with the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Mr. Trump appeared to align himself with the Kremlin against American law enforcement before the Russian ruler and a global audience.

Mr. Trump had said he would raise the issue of Russia’s interference in the election with Mr. Putin, but the result was a series of statements that could have been scripted by Moscow. Mr. Trump said that, while Daniel Coats, the United States’ director of national intelligence, had told him Russia was responsible for hacking into the server of the Democratic National Committee, “I don’t see any reason why it would be.” He referred to various discredited conspiracy theories about the hack while lambasting the FBI. As Mr. Trump apparently sees it, Russia’s invasions of Ukraine and Georgia, war crimes in Syria, poison attack in Britain and the shooting down of a Malaysian civilian airliner over Ukraine are morally equivalent to the policies pursued by previous U.S. administrations.

It’s not yet known what Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin discussed in their private meeting, or whether they reached any tangible agreements.  Even if he obtained nothing concrete from Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin scored a symbolic triumph by appearing to stand as an equal with the U.S. president in a relationship with “special responsibility for maintaining international security,” as he put it.

While Mr. Trump’s insistence on granting Mr. Putin that status was misguided, it paled beside his betrayal of the FBI and his own senior intelligence officials. Incredibly, Mr. Trump appeared to endorse a cynical suggestion by Mr. Putin that Mr. Mueller’s investigators be granted interviews with a dozen Russian intelligence officers indicted in the DNC hack in exchange for Russian access to associates of William Browder, a financier whose exposure of high-level corruption and human rights crimes in Moscow led to the adoption by Congress of the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on those responsible.

Mr. Putin’s citation of bogus Russian charges against Mr. Browder was matched by Mr. Trump’s garbled reference to “the Pakistani gentleman” who was falsely alleged by right-wing conspiracy theorists to be behind the leak of DNC emails.

In Helsinki, Mr. Trump again insisted “there was no collusion” with Russia. Yet in refusing to acknowledge the plain facts about Russia’s behavior, while trashing his own country’s justice system, Mr. Trump in fact was openly colluding with the criminal leader of a hostile power.

Trump deserves to suffer the penalty set forth in the United States Code - the sooner, the better.

Trump Ignores Intelligence, Courts Putin, and Leaves America Vulnerable to Attacks

The Washington Post has a very long article on Donald Trump's maniacal rejection of the findings of America's intelligence agencies on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Frighteningly, the article also looks at Trump's efforts to block meaningful actions to protect America from future Russian attacks. The article relied on interviews with 50 past and present White House and intelligence personnel.  The question raised by the article obviously becomes one of why?  Some point to Trump's narcissism that prevents him from any admission that his election to the White House may have been due to anything other than his own magnificence.  The more sinister explanation is, of course, is that the Trump/Pence campaign did collude with Russia and was fully aware of the extent of subversive efforts of Vladimir Putin's henchmen.  This latter explanation seems all the more likely given Trump's efforts to leave America vulnerable to future Russian attacks.  Here are article highlights (read the entire piece):

In the final days before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, members of his inner circle pleaded with him to acknowledge publicly what U.S. intelligence agencies had already concluded — that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was real.

Holding impromptu interventions in Trump’s 26th-floor corner office at Trump Tower, advisers — including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and designated chief of staff, Reince Priebus — prodded the president-elect to accept the findings that the nation’s spy chiefs had personally presented to him on Jan. 6. . . . they said that doing so was the only way to put the matter behind him politically and free him to pursue his goal of closer ties with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

But as aides persisted, Trump became agitated. He railed that the intelligence couldn’t be trusted and scoffed at the suggestion that his candidacy had been propelled by forces other than his own strategy, message and charisma. . . . . Admitting that the Kremlin had hacked Democratic Party emails, he said, was a “trap.”

Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House.

The result is without obvious parallel in U.S. history, a situation in which the personal insecurities of the president — and his refusal to accept what even many in his administration regard as objective reality — have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat. The repercussions radiate across the government.

Rather than search for ways to deter Kremlin attacks or safeguard U.S. elections, Trump has waged his own campaign to discredit the case that Russia poses any threat and he has resisted or attempted to roll back efforts to hold Moscow to account.

His administration has moved to undo at least some of the sanctions the previous administration imposed on Russia for its election interference . . . Although the issue has been discussed at lower levels at the National Security Council, one former high-ranking Trump administration official said there is an unspoken understanding within the NSC that to raise the matter is to acknowledge its validity, which the president would see as an affront.

His position has alienated close American allies and often undercut members of his Cabinet — all against the backdrop of a criminal probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

This account of the Trump administration’s reaction to Russia’s interference and policies toward Moscow is based on interviews with more than 50 current and former U.S. officials, many of whom had senior roles in the Trump campaign and transition team or have been in high-level positions at the White House or at national security agencies. Most agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

Michael V. Hayden, who served as CIA director under President George W. Bush, has described the Russian interference as the political equivalent of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, an event that exposed a previously unimagined vulnerability and required a unified American response.

“What the president has to say is, ‘We know the Russians did it, they know they did it, I know they did it, and we will not rest until we learn everything there is to know about how and do everything possible to prevent it from happening again,’ ” Hayden said in an interview. Trump “has never said anything close to that and will never say anything close to that.”

The feeble American response has registered with the Kremlin.  U.S. officials said that a stream of intelligence from sources inside the Russian government indicates that Putin and his lieutenants regard the 2016 “active measures” campaign — as the Russians describe such covert propaganda operations — as a resounding, if incomplete, success.

But overall, U.S. officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute and was organized around two main objectives — destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House.

The bottom line for Putin, said one U.S. official briefed on the stream of post-election intelligence, is that the operation was “more than worth the effort.”

The Russian operation seemed intended to aggravate political polarization and racial tensions and to diminish U.S. influence abroad. The United States’ closest alliances are frayed, and the Oval Office is occupied by a disruptive politician who frequently praises his counterpart in Russia.

“Putin has to believe this was the most successful intelligence operation in the history of Russian or Soviet intelligence,” said Andrew Weiss, a former adviser on Russia in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It has driven the American political system into a crisis that will last years.”

U.S. officials declined to discuss whether the stream of recent intelligence on Russia has been shared with Trump. Current and former officials said that his daily intelligence update — known as the president’s daily brief, or PDB — is often structured to avoid upsetting him.

The CIA continues to stand by its conclusions about the election, for example, even as the agency’s director, Mike Pompeo, frequently makes comments that seem to diminish or distort those findings.

In October, Pompeo declared the intelligence community had concluded that Russia’s meddling “did not affect the outcome of the election.” In fact, spy agencies intentionally steered clear of addressing that question.

The president’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, moved to undermine support for NATO within weeks of arriving at the White House.  . . . . Bannon and his allies also maneuvered to sabotage displays of unity with the alliance. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived for an April visit at the White House, McMaster’s team prepared remarks for Trump that included an endorsement of Article 5 — the core NATO provision calling for members to come to one another’s defense.  But the language was stripped out at the last minute by NATO critics inside the administration

On sensitive matters related to Russia, senior advisers have at times adopted what one official described as a policy of “don’t walk that last 5½feet” — meaning to avoid entering the Oval Office and giving Trump a chance to erupt or overrule on issues that can be resolved by subordinates.

“Look at our actions,” a senior administration official said in an interview. “We’re pushing back against the Russians.”  Senior Trump officials have struggled to explain how. In congressional testimony in October, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pressed on whether the administration had done enough to prevent Russian interference in the future. “Probably not,” Sessions said. “And the matter is so complex that for most of us we are not able to fully grasp the technical dangers that are out there.”