Former Massachusetts Governor, federal prosecutor and Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld thinks so.
Today, Weld charged that Trump’s Ukraine whistleblower treachery of extorting a foreign power to get “dirt” on his chief rival — Vice President Joe Biden — amounted to “treason punishable by death.”
On MSNBC Morning Joe, Weld accused Trump of lawless corruption that goes far beyond impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors standard to a breach of faith and violation of sworn allegiance to his country.
Wow, just wow!
Please share widely!
Nope.
Treason is easy to say. Very hard to prove.
“War” and “enemies” have specific legal meanings that aren’t met here. That’s why in only 200-something years only a handful of people have been convicted of treason and none since 1952 (for actions in WWII). It really only works if we’re at war with someone. We’re not with Russia.
This kind of talk is nonsense.
Fascist Russia is an enemy to all free nations of the world, including Ukraine.
Russia should have become the enemy of ALL civilized countries when they invaded independent Ukraine and stole Crimea. Now they are threatening eastern Ukraine with military intervention.
If Trump’s aid and comfort to Russia by threatening to withhold $ quarter billion dollars in desperately needed military aid for Ukraine’s defense unless they dished dirt on Biden — isn’t treason — it SHOULD be.
Screw Russia and screw Trump.
Long live a free and independent Ukraine!
So, you support declaring war on Russia?
Is military aid to Ukraine good?
You can argue about Russia being an enemy but we ain’t anywhere close to meeting the legal basis for treason (if it was North Korea there would be a better legal question since we never really formally ended the conflict, although we also did not formally declare war).
Don’t get me wrong, this ain’t good, and it’s another in the long list of things to use for impeachment, but it is not treason.
I do not support declaring war on Russia.
I DO support accepting Ukraine into NATO and invoking Article 5 which states that an attack on ANY member nation shall be considered an attack on ALL. Every freedom – loving civilized nation should be coming to the aid of Ukraine against this unprovoked dastardly Russian attack.
Of coarse military aid to the independent, democratic nation of Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression is a good thing.
Trump’s despicable ass kissing of that fascist criminal thug Putin, and his now-confessed quid pro quo extortion of President Zelensky may not meet the Constitutional legal definition of treason but it sure as hell smells like treason to me.
This behavior by Donald Trump is, according to my understanding of constitution experts, precisely why the phrase “other high crimes and misdemeanors” is explicitly separate from treason and bribery.
Both treason and bribery have clear meanings that were well-understood by the framers. That also made them narrow in focus.
I suggest we focus our energy on the most relevant phrase.
So you support starting a war with Russia, but not declaring war.
IMO this law narrowed the definition beyond what the Constitution requires.
“Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election. It couldn’t be clearer. And that’s not just undermining democratic institutions. That is treason. It’s treason, pure and simple, and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death. That’s the only penalty.” former Governor William Weld
I do not think Donald Trump should be executed. I hope that even Mr. Weld agrees with me.
Possibly, this is not the first time Trump has done something like this https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/7/17327278/ben-rhodes-black-cube-iran-deal