TELL CONGRESS: Their Failure to Impeach is Actually a Crime

If Congress will not impeach Donald Trump for all his impeachable offenses, it might be time to charge congresspersons with a crime and send them to prison.

More on that later, but first some background.

Treason is considered one of the most severe crimes a person can commit because it reflects a direct betrayal of the nation. Anyone convicted of treason faces penalties including death or long-term imprisonment, substantial fines, and permanent disqualification from serving governments at any level.

It appears beyond any doubt that Donald Trump has committed treason numerous times.

Section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment stipulates that any U.S. citizen is guilty of treason who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same {the United States}, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” On. Jan. 6, 2021, Trump not only led the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, but he refused to stop it although he easily could have and although members of his administration begged him to. Instead, he watched the whole thing on television and refused to do anything.

Twenty-two days later, Jeannie Suk Gersen wrote an article for the New Yorker under the headline “Did Trump and His Supporters Commit Treason?”, in which she wrote, “Few events in American history have matched the Framer’s definition as clearly as the insurrection of January 6th.”

And Carlton F. W. Larson, a treason scholar and law professor at the University of California, Davis, agrees. He wrote, “The Framers of our Constitution had a very specific image in mind – men gathering with guns and marching on the seat of government. Few events in American history, if any, have matched that description as clearly as the insurrection of January 6th.”

But that’s just one example of how Trump has committed “one of the most severe crimes a person can commit.” There are others.

On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump, acting against the advice of Vice President J.D. Vance and others in his administration, pardoned at least 13 persons who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy for their actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection. That means that although they had ”engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States, Trump had provided them “aid and comfort.” How, according to the 14th Amendment, can that not be treason?

Then, early last week, roughly $580 million worth of oil futures changed hands in a single minute, only about 15 minutes before Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States had been engaged in “productive conversations” with Iran to end the war (which Iran flatly denies).

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman described that sequence of events in these words: “We have another word for situations in which people with access to confidential information regarding national security — such as plans to bomb or not to bomb another country — exploit that information for profit. That word is treason.”

Of course, Trump will never be charged with treason because the Supreme Court gave him permission to commit any crime he wanted to as long as he could connect it with his official duties. Until that moment, only kings and dictators had ever held such power.

History also works in Trump’s favor. Since the Constitution was adopted, fewer than 40 federal treason cases have been prosecuted, and only three of them have produced executions. Furthermore, modern prosecutions are extremely rare. Instead, modern cases that could be considered treason are prosecuted under related statutes like sedition or rebellion/insurrection.

But although prosecuting Trump for treason appears beyond hope, there is no reason that Congress should not impeach him, and there is every reason that it should – even every reason that it must, because if it doesn’t all its members could be fined or imprisoned.

U.S. Code, Title 18, Chapter 115, Paragraph 2382, reads: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.”

But even if Trump never gets charged with a crime, and even if he is never impeached, because Trump did engage in “insurrection or rebellion against” the United States, and because he did offer “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” and because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment clearly says that “No person shall … hold any office” in the United States who has done those things, it appears Trump has already disqualified himself from holding office. In legality/reality, then, it seems Trump is not even the president of the United States anymore. And if Trump is illegitimate, so are Vance and all Trump’s appointees, and so are all his executive orders and pardons. They all should be tossed out.

It’s doubtful that Trump will see it that way, even though he has publicly and loudly accused several Democrats of committing treason for much less cause. He’s even said some should be executed for it. He famously accused six Democrats of treason because they reminded service people it was their duty to disobey illegal orders.

Trump has gone so far as to say former President Barack Obama should be prosecuted for treason after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a slew of documents that she said implicate Obama and members of his administration for treason during the 2016 election.

Soon after Gabbard said that, a reporter asked Trump who he thought should be prosecuted for treason. Trump replied:

“Well, based on what I read, and I read pretty much what you read, it would be President Obama. He started it. And Biden was there with them and (then-FBI Director James) Comey was there and (then-Director of National Intelligence James) Clapper. The whole group was there — (then-CIA Director John) Brennan. They were all there, the — in a room. Right here, this was the room.”

Responsible voices agree that the accusations were ridiculous and nothing more has been done about them. Nor will there be.

I wonder what would happen if a lot of us were to contact our representatives in Congress and reminded them of U.S. Code, Title 18, Chapter 115, Paragraph 2382.

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