Professor Larson comments on treason for Washington Post, PRI, other media

  • by Carla Meyer

President Donald Trump’s comments during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week inspired cries of “treasonous” from sources as high as former CIA Director John Brennan.

But Trump’s remarks did not meet the legal definition of the crime of treason, UC Davis School of Law Professor Carlton F. W. Larson, an expert on the topic, told The Washington Post, PRI, the CBC and other media outlets.

Larson told The Post that because the United States is not in a state of war with Russia, Trump “could hand the nuclear codes over to Putin, and it wouldn’t be treason. This isn’t anything as bad as that. Groveling in front of a foreign leader, putting the interests of a foreign country ahead of the United States, displaying horrific judgment in foreign policy — none of those things are treason.”

At the press conference, Trump seemed to side with Putin, who has denied Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, against United States intelligence officials.

“(U.S. Director of National Intelligence) Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia,” Trump told reporters. “I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be.”

Trump tried to walk back his comments after encountering intense criticism. But even the original comments did not approach the standard for treason established in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. It reads, “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Larson also laid out what constitutes treason for PRI’s “The World,” and commented that although nothing Trump has done publicly so far approaches treason, “there are lots of things that are not treason that are really, really bad and impeachable.”

“For a long time, these have been law school hypotheticals,” Larson continued. “Trump has brought these hypotheticals into reality.”

Larson also commented for the CBC radio show "The Current,” stating, "It's quite possible to betray the country, to put other countries' interests ahead of our own, and to do things that severely undermine the country, without technically being a traitor." He also appeared on Virginia radio station WHRV’s show “HearSay.” World Journal, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the United States, quoted from Larson’s recent interview with The Post. Newsweek, in its own story last week about Trump and what constitutes treason, cited Larson’s Washington Post op-ed from February 2017, “Five myths about treason.”

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).