‘Treason’: House Judiciary Committee Report Implicates Trump in Ultimate Crime

The House Judiciary Committee report released Saturday on the legal and constitutional framework for impeaching President Donald Trump includes a discussion of the most serious crime listed in the Constitution: treason.

Citing the constitutional provision that impeachment applies to “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” the report hints throughout that President Trump might have committed treason against the United States.

The Constitution specifically defines treason in Article III, Section 3: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

The House Judiciary Committee report, however, expands that definition to include what it calls “betrayal,” and declares: “Although the Framers did not intend impeachment for good faith disagreements on matters of diplomacy, they were explicit that betrayal of the Nation through schemes with foreign powers justified that remedy.”

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The phrase “schemes with foreign powers” is sufficiently vague to include the “quid pro quo” plan that Democrats allege the president attempted to make with Ukraine, trading U.S. aid for investigation into a political opponent.

(No direct evidence exists to prove that claim, and the only direct witnesses testified before the House Intelligence Committee that the president did not want that “quid pro quo.”)

Later, the report again implicates President Trump in “treason” by creating an expansive definition that just happens to reflect Democrats’ argument that Trump endangered national security by suspending security assistance to a U.S. ally.

The report expands the definition of “treason” as follows:

At the very heart of “Treason” is deliberate betrayal of the nation and its security. Such betrayal would not only be unforgivable, but would also confirm that the President remains a threat if allowed to remain in office. A President who has knowingly betrayed national security is a President who will do so again. He endangers our lives and those of our allies.

In releasing the report, House Judiciary Committee Chairman tweeted Saturday that Trump “betrayed our national security” — a claim that falls within the broad definition of “treason,” as expanded by his committee’s arguments: