So, now the Washington Post is apparently defending them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.c660c97390a2
MYTH NO. 1
Disloyalty or policies that harm the United States are treason.
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The framers of the Constitution took deliberate steps to ensure that treason trials would not be used as political weapons against opponents. Article 3, Section 3 defines the crime very narrowly......................
MYTH NO. 2
Aiding Russia is treason against the United States.
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But enemies are defined very precisely under American treason law. An enemy is a nation or an organization with which the United States is in a declared or open war . Nations with whom we are formally at peace, such as Russia, are not enemies. (Indeed, a treason prosecution naming Russia as an enemy would be tantamount to a declaration of war.) ..............................
MYTH NO. 3
Leaking classified material or handling it sloppily is treason.
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But none of these actions amounts to levying war against the United States, as that offense requires some use of force in an attempt to overthrow the government. No such force or intent is present in any of these scenarios. Nor do the actions constitute aiding the enemy.
MYTH NO. 4
Only U.S. citizens can commit treason against the U.S.
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But the offense of treason can be committed by any person who owes allegiance to the United States, and this can include noncitizens.
MYTH NO. 5
Very few Americans have committed treason.
No person has been executed for treason by the federal government under the Constitution. The small handful of people who have been convicted of the offense at the federal level ? such as two militants from the Whiskey Rebellion and several people after World War II ? have mostly been pardoned or released. So we are sometimes told that treason has been ?rare? in the United States.
Hardly. During the American Revolution, the rebelling Americans were all committing treason against Britain. Similarly, the thousands of Americans who actively aided the British committed treason against the United States. In the Civil War, the hundreds of thousands of men who fought for the Confederacy all levied war against the United States, as did the people who aided and abetted the rebellion.
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