Rommie wrote:I would btw be interested to hear the military members of this board tell me what the definition of treason actually is and whether you think Trump engaged in it.
There are a couple of aspects to treason. In the strickest military sense it boils down to assisting a foriegn power in a manner that injures the U.S. or gives a material advantage to a foreign power. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) has some interesting aspects and there are number of articles that could be used to charge someone who did that. That is assuming that person actually was subject to the UCMJ. Which the president is not. And if you look up Treason in the UCMJ it usually defaults to the Espionage Article 109A from which that definition is taken.
The constitution itself gives us a little more to go with in regard to Treason. Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution clearly 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.
There are also some strick provisions against enlisting a foriegn power to help sway elections, using foriegn money to win elections, and other aspects that come into play. For example, he could be considered to be guilty of espionage which entails selling your country out in exchange for something. It's strongly similar to treason but does not require us to be in an active state of war to be charged with said crime.
On a personal level I strongly beleive that Donald J. Trump committed treason. I think,that if he goes down, the primary charges will probably be for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. One of the reasons for that is that treason is rarely used unless we are actually in a declared state of war. I beleive that Trump "adhered to our enemy" and that he provided them with "Aid and Comfort". But, a prosecutor might not actually use that charge due to the narrow definition that treason sometimes falls into.
The more we learn about Trump and how long he has possibly been influenced by the Russians (since at least the 1980's) it is not too much of a stretch to start thinking in terms of espionage and treason.