Attorney and author Shan Wu is writing in the Daily Beast that Trump is demanding the power to prosecute individuals and whole groups of people alike without either the benefit of court or legal language.
Trump is using executive orders at “a record-breaking” pace to “further personal grievances” that are untethered to the law,” says Wu. This includes his presidential memoranda accusing his own former officials, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, of crimes including, in the case of Taylor, treason — which carries a potential death sentence.
The president, who is himself a convicted felon, accused Taylor of treason in an order entitled “Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods.” According to Trump, Taylor “illegally published classified conversations,” and claims it is forbidden for “a government employee to improperly “discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness" to sow chaos and distrust in Government.
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Trump adds this sort of conduct “could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act,” although Wu claims Trump’s use of the word “treason” has “about as much legal precision as someone flipping off another driver in a fit of road rage.”
The definition of treason “shall consist only in levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,” which Wu says is nowhere near the way Trump wants to use it. But when government authorities refuse to address the abuse of the Presidential office to press personal grievances, they’re saying the president “is free to indict, adjudicate and impose punishments for criminal accusations against a group of people—or a single person like Taylor or Krebs—through a mere decree.”
To be specific, Taylor wrote an opinion piece for a newspaper, like many New York Times and local newspaper guest writers. Wu says this does not count as “levying War,” however badly Trump may want it to.
“Trump’s accusations against (Taylor and Krebs) appear nonsensical because they don’t fit the law. But maybe that’s the very point, namely that the Trump administration wants to change the law by any means possible,” Wu warns.
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Read Wu's full op-ed in the Daily Beast here (subscription required).