HowStuffWorks consults Professor Larson on meaning, history of 'treason'

Professor Carlton F.W. Larson helped clarify the legal definition of treason for a story headlined “What Does ‘Treason’ Actually Mean?” published on the HowStuffWorks website.

The story references President Donald Trump’s tweet of “TREASON?” that followed the publication in September of an anonymous New York Times op-ed - which the Times said came from a White House insider - critical of the president. It also addresses the cries of “treason” launched at Trump after his joint press conference in July with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

Neither the op-ed nor Trump’s performance in Helsinki qualifies under the strict constitutional definition of treason as levying war against the United States, or adhering or giving aid and comfort to its enemies.

The Constitution’s framers “realized there were significant dangers from expansive definitions of treason,” Larson told HowStuffWorks. “Many of their own resistance activities prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War had been deemed treasonous by British legal officials, and many colonial Americans had strongly resisted those interpretations. So the framers sought to limit the crime to two specific offenses.”

Professor Larson is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the law of treason and is the author of the forthcoming book The Trials of Allegiance: Treason, Juries, and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press).