There has been discussion within the impeachment movement over whether George Bush can formally be accused of treason, or if such accusations, though arguable, would not meet legal muster. I believe they would. Some pretty smart lawyers I know are discussing this question, and as a layman I can only apply the law as I understand it.
Valerie Plame
The first case for treason centers on Valerie Plame. The definition of treason according to Article 3, Section 3, of the US Constitution
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
On July 12, 2007 George Bush admitted:
"Somebody in his administration leaked the name of that person, Valerie Plame"
In the Dorgan-Waxman Committee Hearings of July 22, 2005, on the damage to the national security done by Plame's identification, an expert witness, Special Forces Col. Patrick Lang said that, as a result of Plame's identification:
"The possibility of penetrating these groups, the possibility of knowing that they're going to carry 10-pound bags of explosive in the subway stations, will go right down the drain."
This was in addition to similar testimony by other expert witnesses, mostly former CIA officers. Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, October 4, 2003, quoted a former diplomat as affirming that:
"every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's
name through its databases within hours of its publication to
determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities." -Former diplomat quoted by Walter Pincus,
"Every foreign intelligence service" would include the Pakistani ISI, the Inter-Intelligence Services, which is riddled with Al Qaeda sympathizers. It was only a matter of time before Al Qaeda knew if you had been passing secrets along to that Plame woman.
Summary: Someone in the Bush administration gave information to our enemies, which constitutes "aid and comfort" which made it easier to attack us. In conventional war, the parallel would be telling the Germans where the main assault would hit on D-Day. Remember, Ike, General Eisenhower, knew it was important to keep them guessing. In the war on terror the serial number of a single cargo container docked at an American port is more important than armies, as this is a HUMINT (spook talk for Human Intelliegence) war. Amounts of hardware (tanks, planes) have sunk to near irrelevance in protecting us, as stealth determination of the enemy's precise actions and intentions, assessed by covert agents, is now most important.
This is exactly what Plame's job was for the 20 years she was non-official cover, meaning she was set up in a private business as a front to hide any connection with the U.S. government. Many details of her career are still classified, but we know whe worked as a clandestine operative in the area of "non-proliferation." Non-proliferation means stopping the spread of unconventional weapons, like bio-weapons or nukes. When the administration blew Plame's cover to Al Qaeda, anyone seen having lunch with Plame in the past twenty years was suspect. The shadowy world of trade in weapons of mass destruction was now filled with walking dead men.
By Bush's own description of this "new kind of war," he committed
the worst form of treason. It would have been less damaging had he
given bin laden the blueprints for the F-16. Why prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald went with the lighter charge of violation of the Covert Agents Identity Act is a mystery. You can unmask a covert agent and still not do too much damage, if they are working in, say, France, and for this the Act would be appropriate. Bush did untold damage, because Plame was working on the non-proliferation of unconventional weapons," meaning, not letting Al Qaeda get hold of a nuke or a bio-weapon. Bush poked the eyes out of our ability to know where in the underground world WMD was coming from and where they were going, according to testimony in the Dorgan-Waxman hearings on Plame.
Bush built his career on protecting us from WMD, and that is exactly
what he exposed us to when he betrayed Plame. Treason.
Lying Under Oath: The Oath of Office
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