Understanding Treason

[PoliticalChic]

1. On Jan 20, 1791, A bill to charter the Bank of the United States for twenty years was passed by the Senate. Disagreement about its constitutionality was to create the first political parties.
On February 8, the House passed the bank bill, 39 to 20. Washington’s Attorney-General, Edmond Randolph of Virginia, felt that the Bank was unconstitutional, and Jefferson, feeling that only the state could charter a bank, actually suggested any person acting for a central bank shall be adjudged guilty of high treason and suffer death accordingly by state courts. Chernow, "Alexander Hamiltion," p.352



2. "One of the first to notice the politicization of intellectuals was the French writer Julien Benda, whose 1927 La trahison des clercs—“the treason of the clerks,” with “clerk” understood in its medieval sense as an educated person distinct from the uneducated laity—gave a phrase to educated discourse.

Today, people most frequently use the phrase to signify the allegiance that intellectuals gave to Communism, despite the evident fact that the establishment of Communist regimes led everywhere and always to a decrease in the kind of intellectual freedom and respect for individual rights that intellectuals claimed to defend.
The Persistence of Ideology by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Winter 2009



a.Ann Coulter weighs in in her best-seller, “Treason” that liberals have been wrong on every foreign policy issue, from the fight against Communism at home and abroad, the Nixon and the Clinton presidencies, and the struggle with the Soviet empire right up to today’s war on terrorism.

Liberals have been horribly wrong in all their political analyses and policy prescriptions. McCarthy, exonerated by the Venona Papers if not before, was basically right about Soviet agents working for the U.S. government. Hiss turned out to be a high-ranking Soviet spy (who consulted Roosevelt at Yalta).



3. On June 19, 1953 , Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing.
Had they not given Stalin the secrets necessary to construct the atomic bomb, there would not have been a Korean War...and a very different China.

On April 5, 1951, Judge Irving R. Kaufman sentenced the Rosenbergs to death for theft of atomic secrets, and, resulted in "the communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason." Judge Kaufman's Sentencing Statement in the Rosenberg Case
But they were not found guilty of treason.




4. Article III, section 3 of the Constitution: 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. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

a. It is more than interesting that, looking at Article 3 Section 3, we see almost word for word Deuteronomy 17:6: ‘No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses. . .’ Deuteronomy 17:6 “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses. . .”.
The next paragraph in Article 3 Section 3 refers to who should pay the price for treason.
In England, they could punish the sons for the trespasses of the father, if the father died. Roger Anghis -- Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots, Part 7




So, it seems that there is treason, and there is treason....What???
Actually, it is not unusual to have a colloquial meaning for a term, and a technical one. Such is the case for "treason."

Next part will include Bowe Bergdahl.

 

[PoliticalChic]

5. "Treason is the only crime the Constitution pre-empts Congress from defining.

It’s also the only crime to which such authorities as the police and the FBI mayn’t take a confession.

It is the only crime of which the judicial branch is barred from convicting someone through the normal rules of due process.


a. Treason is special, made so because of abuse by the English kings.




6. One can, even in war, dissent from our government without committing treason. The plain language suggests that one can even adhere to an enemy without committing treason. That is, an American whose family came over from, say, Germany, could have privately rooted for Germany in World War I.

So long as he didn’t do anything about it.




7. But if one gives aid and comfort, then it’s treason. And whether or not one adheres to an enemy, one may never levy war against the United States. That is treason. We mark that not to accuse Sergeant Bergdahl but just to offer some context for the latest report...... The report on Fox News that Sergeant Bergdahl at one point during his captivity declared himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam, and may even have been allowed to carry a weapon puts at a premium an understanding of treason.



If it turns out that Sergeant Bergdahl was carrying a weapon against the United States, the story becomes a whole new ballgame."
The Meaning of Treason - The New York Sun

 

[PoliticalChic]

8. ".... the Constitution sets a high bar for a conviction of treason.
“No Person shall be convicted of Treason,” it says, “unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses.” They have to witness an act. It has to be the same act. And it has to be overt.
The only acceptable confession to treason is one made in court. And it can’t be a closed session of court. It has to be open court. All that’s in the Constitution.



9. Bollman and Swartwout, two confederates of Aaron Burr, were let off by Chief Justice Marshall because conspiring to levy war, which they’d done, and actually levying war, which hadn’t been done, are different things.



a. The conviction of Tomoya Kawakita, who’d been born in America but was in Japan when World War II erupted and went to work in an arms plant, was sustained.

That plant used pow's, and Kawakita had beaten them.

The Supreme Court sustained his conviction and his death sentence. President Eisenhower commuted it to life in prison; President Kennedy later pardoned him on the condition he be deported to Japan and banned from returning to American soil."
The Meaning of Treason - The New York Sun

 

[PoliticalChic]

10." ....in the case of Tokyo Rose — or the most famous of the several “Tokyo Roses,” Iva Ikuko Toguri D’Aquino. She had been born at America but was in Japan when war broke out. She refused to give up her American citizenship and ended up working at Radio Tokyo, where she was part of the notorious broadcast “Zero Hour,” which Allied POWs had been tortured into helping produce.....

When she returned to America, columnist Walter Winchell went after her, and she was put in the dock and convicted of treason. She served six years. Then, in 1977, the Chicago Tribune took another look at her case and discovered that two witnesses had lied.
President Ford gave her a full pardon, and she later actually won a citizenship award for courage from the World War II Veterans.



11. Her case does not mean that treason is a figment. There is such a thing as treason, it is a heinous crime, and it needs always to be understood by those who take war seriously. But Tokyo Rose is a reminder that even with all the protections the Constitution puts up against abuse of treason, one needs to keep a level head......[but] take the issues of desertion and possible treason seriously." The Meaning of Treason - The New York Sun



Bowe Bergdahl.......wait and see.