“Treason” is a very serious word which should never be used lightly … yet that’s exactly the term that President Donald Trump just used to describe what happened during the 2016 election.
On Friday, Trump minced no words in a tweet which blasted the Obama-era intelligence community for allegedly spying on his campaign as he battled Democrat Hillary Clinton three years ago.
“My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on,” the president posted. “Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation.”
Then he dropped the T-word, not once but twice: “TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!”
My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!
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While Trump didn’t specifically reference the latest claims from Attorney General William Barr, it’s very likely that the strongly worded tweet was triggered by Barr’s findings.
The head of the Justice Department recently declared that the Obama administration used government resources — including the FBI — to spy on American citizens and influence the presidential election.
“In two separate interviews, Barr doubled down on his assertion that illegal spying did take place, a claim he made before senators last month,” CBS News reported on Friday.
“Government power was used to spy on American citizens,” the attorney general said in one of those interviews with The Wall Street Journal. “I can’t imagine any world where we wouldn’t take a look and make sure that was done properly.”
That bombshell claim appears to match what Trump has asserted for months: Democrats used their power within government agencies to dig into the Trump campaign in an effort to derail it. If true, that would mean officials who are sworn to serve the American people instead conspired to influence a U.S. election for political purposes.
It certainly looks like something shady went on, no matter what word you use to describe it.
Various puzzle pieces are now falling into place, and they show a very disturbing picture of what went on during the final months of the Obama administration and the early days of the Trump presidency.
For instance, it now looks all but certain that the Democratic National Committee helped create a false dossier which was meant to link Trump to Russia.
Further, it appears that FBI officials who knew the dossier was untrustworthy used it to push a collusion narrative anyway, and severely bent the truth to obtain surveillance warrants against the Trump team.
And that’s without even mentioning FBI officials who admitted their desires to stop Trump, or the insider discussions about a political coup to literally remove a duly-elected president from office.
Each of these examples should set off alarm bells; when viewed together, the implications are jaw-dropping.
But was it treason? The Constitution is surprisingly clear about what counts as that high crime.
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,” it states in Article III.
A much better word for what allegedly happened might be “sedition.” It’s a lesser-known term, but carries serious weight.
“While seditious conspiracy is generally defined as conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state, treason is the more-serious offense of actively levying war against the United States or giving aid to its enemies,” explains the Reuters-owned FindLaw website.
We simply don’t know if the grave accusations being presented by Trump and Barr would hold up in court, or how far they will get at all.
What is clear, however, is that the left has consistently mocked the president’s claims … only for him to end up being mostly vindicated.
That’s what happened with the Mueller report. That’s also what happened with the president’s past claims of wiretapping at Trump Tower and his assertions on the now-discredited Steele dossier.
If the pattern holds, Trump may end up having the last laugh — except the issue is no laughing matter, and we are now in truly uncharted political waters.
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