“Trump Accuses McCabe and Rosenstein of Plotting Treason”

Another brilliant statement from the stable genius.

It is certainly evident that those guys had discussions at various times about removing a President through Constitutional means, but that is certainly not treasonous. It’s just a discussion, and I suppose it could be considered anything from subversive to patriotic, depending on which political newsletters you subscribe to.

Trump has probably never used a dictionary or read a copy of the Constitution. If he had, he might have realized that the Constitution says, “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

In other words,

(1) It is almost impossible to commit treason during peacetime, since a nation at peace has no declared “enemies,” but merely geopolitical rivals. Even the Rosenbergs were not accused of treason for their part in trying to give nuclear weapons to Joseph Stalin. Nobody has been convicted of treason for any actions after WW2.

(2) If one considers the war on terror to be a true war, then groups like ISIS can be considered enemies. Even allowing for that loose interpretation, one would have to assist ISIS to commit treason.

(3) If Russia is considered to be an enemy (a real stretch, but some would say so), then one might consider it treason to give aid and comfort to Russia.

(4) Not only is it not treasonous to discuss removing a President legally, but it’s not even treasonous to remove a President from office through an illegal coup or violence. Even John Wilkes Booth did not commit an act of treason by killing Lincoln. (He was a traitor, but not for that reason. All the leaders, soldiers and supporters of the CSA were guilty of treason for the act of conducting a war against the USA. They were eventually pardoned. Many were pardoned by name, but that was a reactive and haphazard process so President Andrew Johnson, on Christmas Day in his lame-duck period between the 1868 election and Grant’s inauguration, when he was out of the reach of retribution from either the Congress or the ballot box, finally offered a blanket pardon to any Confederate not covered by previous specific pardons.)

Rosenstein and McCabe have not done anything even vaguely resembling treason, neither by the strict literal interpretation of the Constitution, nor by the expanded definitions in points (2) and (3) above.