A History of Treason
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WHO IS GUILTY, AND WHAT WILL BE DONE ABOUT IT?

by Sharon Rondeau

Aaron Burr was elected vice president in 1800 and tried for treason in 1807. He was acquitted by a grand jury.

(Sept. 7, 2010) — Treason is defined as “Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.” The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia adds to that definition, “In the U.S., the framers of the Constitution defined treason narrowly — as the levying of war against the U.S. or the giving of aid and comfort to its enemies — in order to lessen the possibility that those in power might falsely or loosely charge their political opponents with treason. See also sedition.”

A second source defines treason as “the offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign” or “a violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.”

Stated differently, treason is “the crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security.”

Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

The New World Encylopedia expounds on Treason further:

Treason has always been viewed as the most serious offense, for it is an act against not only an individual but against the society as a whole, embodied in the ruling authority whether individually in the monarch or collectively as government. It is indeed the act or attempt to “murder” one’s nation. While harsh penalties have been used in attempts to deter traitors, the very reason that such acts are considered the worst of crimes are the same ones that drive people to commit them.
Treason in U.S. History

Dr. Benjamin Church, the first U.S. Surgeon General and a delegate from the Massachusetts colony, was accused of corresponding with the British during the Revolutionary War. Church had defended himself but was convicted of consorting with the enemy. His punishment was that he be “close confined in some secure jail in the Colony of Connecticut, without use of pen, ink and paper, and that no person be allowed to converse with him except in the presence and hearing of a magistrate of the town or the sheriff of the county where he is confined, and in the English language, until further orders from this or a future Congress.”

He was jailed in Connecticut and later returned to Massachusetts, only to leave the country on a ship that was never found.

In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr was tried for treason against the U.S. for allegedly “conspiring to invade the territories of a nation at peace with the United States.” The question that had to be decided was whether or not Burr was guilty of “levying war” against the U.S. after being accused of attempting to establish a separate government in the region of the Louisiana Purchase. He also killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and was indicted for murder but was never brought to trial.

President Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr had run on the same ticket as presidential and vice presidential candidates, respectively, in 1800 (page 26), against incumbent President John Adams and his running mate, Charles C. Pinckney. The electoral vote count was a tie, and Jefferson and Burr became opponents. The subsequent election in the House of Representatives rendered Jefferson the victor.

Jefferson reportedly had declared Burr guilty before Burr’s trial had commenced. During his tenure as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Marshall had granted the Supreme Court the power to override the executive branch, all lower courts, and rulings by state governments, while Jefferson favored states’ rights.

Marshall, who wrote the opinion in the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison, and Thomas Jefferson feuded over the Burr case, with Marshall sending Jefferson a subpoena for documents despite the fact that Jefferson had allegedly already supplied them (page 26). Jefferson had dissented with Marshall’s decision to exclude certain testimony and stated that Marshall had intended all along to exonerate Burr (page 27). A grand jury found Burr “not guilty” of treason.
Treason in Modern Times

More recently, those who spread propaganda against U.S. forces during World War II were tried for treason and received jail terms. Mildred Gillars, also known as “Axis Sally” was convicted on one count of treason for her radio broadcasts from Germany against the Allied Forces, served 13 years in prison.

All members of Congress swear an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

In regard to presidential eligibility, the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, clause 5 states:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

On April 30, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Resolution 511, which “declared” John McCain to be a “natural born Citizen” because he was born to two U.S.-citizen parents. However, the resolution failed to address the questionable citizenship of Barack Obama, who himself claimed dual citizenship at birth and appears to have had Indonesian citizenship at least at some point in his life.

There were those who raised the eligibility question of one or both candidates to persons with authority over elections, but no one, not even a state attorney general, would investigate whether or not either major-party candidate met the eligibility requirements for president.

The state Electoral Colleges would not investigate. The Supreme Court refused to stay the election so that the eligibility question could be answered.

Some say the election was stolen by Obama and his supporters. Numerous lawsuits have been filed to determine Obama’s eligibility, but despite the promise of a California judge, not one court has heard a case on its merits.

From the National Archives and Records Administration regarding the procedure for certifying the votes from the Electoral College:

The Congress

House and Senate staff come to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) to inspect the Certificates of Vote in late December. Because the statutory procedure prescribes that the Certificates of Vote sent to the President of the Senate be held under seal until Congress opens and counts them in joint session, the Congress depends on the OFR to ensure the facial legal sufficiency of Certificates. If any State’s Certificate fails to reach the President of the Senate, the President of the Senate calls on OFR to deliver duplicate originals in its possession to complete the set held by Congress. After the 1988 general election, the President of the Senate called for nineteen of the Certificates of Vote held by the OFR. For the 1992 election, the OFR supplied the Congress with two missing Certificates of Vote.

The Congress is scheduled to meet in joint session in the House of Representatives at one o’clock January 6, 2001 (this date is subject to change) to conduct the official tally of electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, is the presiding officer. Two tellers are appointed to open, present and record the votes of the States in alphabetical order. The President of the Senate announces the results of the vote and declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States. The results are entered into the official journals of the House and Senate. The President of the Senate then calls for objections to be made. If any objections are registered, they must be submitted in writing and be signed by at least one member of the House and Senate. The House and Senate would withdraw to their respective chambers to consider the merits of any objections according the procedure set out under 3 U.S.C. section 15.

U.S. Code is defined as “the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States.” It is published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

The U.S. Code, Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 15, states:

Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the Hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1 o’clock in the afternoon on that day, and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tellers, having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted according to the rules in this subchapter provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the Journals of the two Houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.

On January 6, 2001, The New York Times reported that there were objections to the counting of the electoral votes following the 2000 presidential election coming from the House of Representatives, but none from the Senate, and that “Federal law requires a member of both the House and the Senate to question a state’s electoral votes in writing for a formal objection to be considered.” After “about a dozen black House members paraded out of the chamber in protest,” Al Gore, the president of the Senate and George W. Bush’s former opponent, read the electoral vote count of 271 to 266 in favor of Bush,who had won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote to Gore.

The date of January 6 was changed to January 8 by Congress for the 2009 electoral vote count. The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Electoral College page explains the process for counting the electoral votes in Congress:

January 8, 2009

* Counting Electoral Votes in Congress
Public Law 110-430 changed the date of the electoral vote in Congress in 2009 from January 6 to January 8. This date change is effective only for the 2008 presidential election.

The Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes (Congress may pass a law to change the date). The President of the Senate is the presiding officer. If a Senator and a House member jointly submit an objection, each House would retire to its chamber to consider it. The President and Vice President must achieve a majority of electoral votes (270) to be elected. In the absence of a majority, the House selects the President, and the Senate selects the Vice President. If a State submits conflicting sets of electoral votes to Congress, the two Houses acting concurrently may accept or reject the votes. If they do not concur, the votes of the electors certified by the Governor of the State would be counted in Congress.

During the joint session of Congress on January 8, 2009, Senate president Dick Cheney failed to call for objections, and despite constituent letters to members of the Senate and House, it appeared that no one had submitted a written objection to attempt to qualify Obama.

The 20th Amendment provides for the case in which a “president elect shall have failed to qualify,” which is “declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.” The amendment was written with the intent of shortening the “lame duck” period between the election in November and the seating of elected officials two months later in January.

Not one member of Congress attempted to ascertain if Obama was qualified to be president. Are they guilty of treason?

State attorneys general have been asked to investigate Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve but have failed to do so. Have they committed treason?

On September 2, Lt. Col. Denise Lind stated that compelling Obama to open his records could prove “embarrassing” to him and denied Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin’s access to them to discover whether or not Obama is eligible to hold office. Is she a traitor as well?

If all of these government officials have failed to uphold their oaths to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, which set of rules are they following? Without the Constitution, what protections do “we the people” have? What kind of law is now the law of the land?

People in positions of power within the U.S. government have been tried and convicted of treason before. So why is Obama still occupying the White House if he cannot prove his eligibility?

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