Has President Trump Committed High Treason?
Paul Craig Roberts
Let’s examine the case.
In the oath of office taken in the swearing in of a president, the about-to-be-president swears allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and promises to defend it against enemies at home and abroad. In other words, enemies of the Constitution are enemies of the United States. (Today the Constitution’s enemies includes university law schools in the United States.)
If you asked what is the United States, some would say it is an idea; others would say it is a geographical territory. But these definitions apply to all countries and thus define none. The correct answer is that the United States is the Constitution.
The Constitution defines the form of government, the powers of the various branches, the distribution of powers between state governments and the federal government, the rights of citizens and the protection of those rights, and it defines the process of changing the Constitution, that is, of changing the United States. Without the Constitution the United States would be a different country.
It is not an election that makes a person the president. It is the person’s vow to defend the United States by defending the Constitution. If an elected president refused the vow at the swearing in ceremony, he could not be confirmed in office as president. When a president-to-be swears an oath to the Constitution he swears an oath to the United States.
The most important parts of the Constitution are the Amendments, the Bill of Rights that had to be incorporated into the Constitution in order to gain its acceptance by all of the founding states. The Bill of Rights protects the citizens from government limiting their rights and committing violence or retribution against them for actions protected by the Constitution.
The principle right is free speech. It is the First Amendment, because without free speech it is impossible for citizens to hold government accountable for violation of the other protections from, and limits on, government power.
Trump’s affinity for Zionist Israel has led him into an act that violates his oath of office and possibly caused him to commit high treason against the United States.
Trump has created by executive order what in effect is a Sedition Act for Israel that prohibits United States citizens from using their First Amendment right to criticize Israel for the genocide of Palestine, the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners, the destruction of Palestinian homes, villages, and olive groves by Israeli settlers who blatantly steal Palestinian land, assassinations of foreign leaders, undue influence over the U.S. legislative and executive branches, state governments, media, finance, and education, and wars of aggression against Middle Eastern countries. U.S. critics of Israel are not even permitted to complain about the Jewish Anti-defamation League’s slander, libel and defamation of them. For an American to complain of being defamed by Zionists is to risk punishment for anti-semitism.
To state it plainly, Trump and his acting attorney general have given priority to protecting Israel, a foreign government, over the First Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. Clearly, this means that Trump and his accommodating acting attorney general are serving a foreign interest by suspending without any right or authority to do so, the First Amendment rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens by the U.S. Constitution.
This puts Trump at odds with his vow to protect the U.S. Constitution and invalidates his swearing-in as president of the United States. Trump has issued an edict that his obliging attorney general has accepted that subordinates the U.S. Constitution to Israel.
On May 19, the acting Attorney General of the United States issued this statement:
“President Trump has made clear that this administration will not tolerate antisemitism [defined as any criticism of Israel and Jews], and the Department of Justice is committed to implement that directive. This national tour is an important step in ensuring communities across the country know the federal government stands ready to work with them to confront antisemitic threats, protect public safety, and uphold civil rights.”
Notice that according to Trump’s attorney general “upholding civil rights” means deep-sixing the First Amendment that protects U. S. Citizens’ free speach rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
As Trump and his attorney general have come out against the First Amendment, they have come out against the US Constiution and, thereby, against the United States. In other words, both seem to be guilty of high treason.
For Trump and his attorney general to rule for Israel against American citizen’s First Amendment rights and the US Constitution that protects these rights calls into question who Trump and his attorney general represent.
It seems certain the President Trump’s willingness to sacrifice the U.S. Constitution to protecting Israel from words of criticism indicates that he has committed high treason in order to serve foreign interests, which would seem to make Trump an enemy of the U.S. Constitution and thereby an enemy of the United States.
If my reasoning is correct, why shouldn’t President Trump be arrested and put on trial for high treason against the United States?
Why did not Trump’s acting attorney general, who happens to be Trump’s personal defense attorney, warn Trump that he was stepping onto treasonous ground? Is a person who aids and abets the president in the possible commission of high treason fit to be attorney general of the United States?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week’s first outside columnist, columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, contributor to the editorial page of the Los Angeles Times, and columnist for the main French and Italian newspapers, and for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles. He served in numerous academic appointments in US universities and was appointed to the William E. Simon Chair for Political Economy at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies where his colleagues were Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James R. Schlesinger (one of his former professors), and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Thomas Moorer. His article, “How the Law Was Lost,” was published in the January 1999 Cardozo Law Review.