The President Is Not the United States
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, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.– US Constitution, Article III, § 3
“unelected deep state operatives” are a “threat to democracy itself.” “(the person who wrote the op-ed) may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state person who has been there for a long time” – President Donald Trump – 9/6/18
“Number one, the Times should never have done that, because really what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason, you could call it a lot of things.” – President Donald Trump – 9/6/18
“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. SICK!” Twitter – President Donald Trump – 2/17/17
Donald Trump, among his many other flaws, is confused. He has conflated the United States, our nation, with himself. While the President of the United States may be the head of state, representing our nation both at home and overseas, the holder of that office is NOT the United States. Trump needs to figure that out.
In the past year or so, he has accused the media of treason and as being an enemy of the American people. He has also accused the “anonymous” (or ‘annimus’) author of this week’s cry for help in the New York Times of treason, and has asked the Department of Justice to investigate and find out who the writer was.
Criticizing the President is not a crime, at least since the Sedition Act expired in 1801. (A brief history lesson, President John Adams and the Federalist Party of Hamilton’s fame, wrote a series of laws restricting immigration and criticism. One, in 1798, was called the Sedition Act, making criticizing the Administration a crime punishable by imprisonment. Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party made opposition to these laws a prime issue in their winning election of 1800, and most, including the Sedition Act, were allowed to expire at the beginning of the Jefferson Administration.) And even in the brief three years when it was a crime, it wasn’t treason. John Adams knew the difference between infuriating criticism that he wanted to end and actual treason against the United States.
In fact, despite the wishes of most “Resistance” fans, even if Trump was a direct agent of Russia who achieved the Presidency with knowing aid of Russian intelligence, he probably still hasn’t committed treason. Russia has not been defined as an “enemy,” and while trying to subvert our electoral process may be considered a “bad” act, it probably doesn’t rise to the legal definition of an “act of war.” Treason is an ultimate crime, one of the few defined in the Constitution itself; it probably does not fit even the worst imagined extremes of the Trump Campaign.
This doesn’t mean that in the most extreme case, the Trump Campaign and the President himself haven’t committed serious legal offenses. Violation of Federal Election Laws, conspiracy to commit fraud on the United States, conspiracy of theft in the Clinton emails, and acting as an unregistered agent of foreign nations are just a few of the possible charges. These possible acts don’t meet the Constitutional definition of treason, but do definitely reach the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” as written in the impeachment clause.
“Treason” and “Enemy of the People” are phrases used to fire up crowds at campaign style rallies, but they shouldn’t apply to what’s going on today. These are dangerous phrases: Americans would “take up arms” against treason, they would try to eliminate “enemies of the people.” These terms are incitements to violence, and in an era where there are weapons of war (1.5 million assault weapons sold each year in US) stored throughout the nation, and an expanding division in race and ideology, they are “flame to gasoline” dangerous. It feeds into an American “dream” of the Minuteman (common man) standing on the green at Lexington, fighting against tyranny. This “treason” needs to be “put down” and if the Justice Department, or the military, won’t do it, well, maybe we will. There’s a reason the American Eagle is on the symbol of the National Rifle Association.
But the President does have one thing right, though not in the way he means it. There is a “threat to democracy” by the “steadystate” theory put forth in the New York Times opinion article. That the un-elected staffers of the executive branch are trying to steady the government from the whims of an out of control President has little to do with democracy. Our system has Constitutional alternatives for this situation; that the “steadystaters” are gaining the tax cuts or regulatory reform they want is far outweighed by the needs of protecting our democracy by using the system. Subverting it by an “administrative coup” does our nation no good.
America needs to “right the ship.” It will take some time, and, unfortunately, during that time more damage will be done. But the Constitution charts a course to fix this, and going outside of its structure threatens permanent damage to our democracy. It starts in November: as former President Obama said once again yesterday: “don’t boo – vote!”
