F. O. C. Darley:
Bacon's rebellion, Virginia, 1676-1677:
Lydia, the wife of the rebel Edmund Cheeseman, faints as he is condemned for treason by the governor of Virginia, William Berkeley; a toothless old lady is restrained from attacking her. Coloured etching by A. Bobbet after F. Darley.
(1935–43)

"We'd all be better off removing him from office
for some medical reason than for Treason!."

Probably the very least likely Comeuppance our incumbent might eventually face would be charges of Treason!. Not due to lack of evidence, since the papers seem filled with ample evidence that such evidence exists, but because of something else, something infinitely more insidious than even Treason!. Treason!, according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, “consists only in levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies by giving them aid and comfort.” It requires an overt act, not merely speech, and must be attested to by at least two witnesses to be successfully prosecuted. Our Constitution defines and prescribes its prosecution, which may occur either in a Federal District Court or in the Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Conviction might result in a death penalty or a prison sentence of at least five years and a fine of at least $10,000, and the loss of the right to hold future public office. It’s serious business.

But the necessary conditions seem essentially unattainable, though probably not because our incumbent has been indemnified against criminal prosecution for any actual duty of office he might commit by the Chief Justice and his kangaroo Supreme Court. Treason! clearly does not qualify as a usual or customary duty of any incumbent President. The term enemy might be difficult to define in terms that might satisfy the Constitution’s intent. We are not actively engaged in any declared war, though, as usual, we are engaged in innumerable undeclared wars with pretty much everybody in the world except our traditional chief enemy, Russia. Can a President commit treason in the absence of a formally-declared enemy? I suspect our Injustice Department would flood any proceeding, District Court or Senate, with enough writs to freeze progress until sometime late in the next century, by which time the issue will have almost certainly become moot. Presidents supposedly cannot be successfully prosecuted for Treason! posthumously, though this limitation seems a pity. Really.

Just achieving an indictment for Treason! seems more than daunting. An impeachment in the House would be the usual, customary, and necessary route to take, and since our incumbent already has two previous impeachments in his vitae, impeachment would seem at least possible. It would be a spectacle and focus enormous amounts of media attention, by which I mean it would inescapably be a circus. Our incumbent is a known clown of considerable renown. The President would still be in office while these proceedings progressed. In office and, presumably, not at rest. Impeachment in the House amounts to nothing more than a formal accusation, so under the innocent until proven guilty rule, his administration would still be actively gutting democracy while the Treason! trial proceeded. We can easily see how this would become a powerful push-me-pull-you process, where The House actively attempts to uphold our democracy while our incumbent simultaneously tries his hardest to undo its most sacred tenets. And, an impeachment alone wouldn’t buy anyone much more than perhaps an ounce of fleeting satisfaction. It couldn’t even serve as a deterrent against repeat performances. It might even encourage our orange one to even more furiously commit even more treasonous acts.

I won’t delve into how an actual trial in the Senate might go, for the Senate has been completely compromised under Republican dominance. Even after Democrats become the majority there after the impending midterms, a super majority will still be required to convict in the Senate. Two-thirds of our Senate hasn’t agreed on much lately. Earlier this year, a super majority voted to approve a bill aimed at increasing housing supply over the objections of our incumbent. Before then, it had been since January 2021, when a super majority (at least 67 votes) overrode a Presidential veto on a Defense spending bill. Super majority agreement could theoretically happen, but in the case where a presidency of these once-United States would be at stake, and the reputation of that presidency’s party would be forever tainted by a guilty finding, the likelihood of him receiving a guilty verdict in the Senate seems less likely than remote: pipe-dream territory. Also, his administration remains in power while this process grinds away at its usual speed-of-a-walking-horse pace. He would most certainly continue raping and pillaging until ultimately removed from office.

What does guilt have to do with justice here, for there seems to be little doubt that this incumbent commits some treasonable offense almost daily? He has been continuously giving aid, if not necessarily comfort, to our avowed enemies and has also been actively attempting to hamper our active ally in their attempts to retain their sovereignty, supposedly in concert with NATO, which represents a solemn and supposed sacred treaty obligation of this land, and therefore of him as incumbent. We no longer expect our incumbent to behave in anything even distantly resembling a reasonable manner. He has no manners I’ve ever witnessed in action. He wouldn’t recognize reasonable if it sat on his face. He’d probably enjoy having reasonable sit on his face, and release a stream of early morning “truths” touting his newfound joy. Historically, a Treason! conviction has sometimes involved taking the convict’s wealth and even stripping their heirs of their titles and claims. That seemed extreme to Lincoln when he was considering a huge spike in Treason! convictions back in the eighteen-sixties. He seemed to think that just taking the convict’s wealth without including family connections constituted adequate punishment. We have a surprising number of laws already on the books and just waiting for an insurgency.

Sticks and stones might break his bones, but a Treason! indictment seems unlikely to ever really hurt our incumbent. The innocent until proven guilty, and free until actually sentenced rules, ones our incumbent’s own freshly founded Injustice Department doesn’t necessarily always abide by, turns an indictment into a form of encouragement to engage in doing even more damage. Our deranged incumbent could be counted on to fly into one of his signature rages and go all fey on his office and on these once-United States. He might well revel in accusations of impropriety, up to and definitely including this capital offense, but an indictment would very likely encourage worse than anybody can imagine from him and his so-called administration. We have a duty to protect ourselves from such domestic enemies of the people and the state as our incumbent. We’d all be better off removing him from office for some medical reason than for Treason!. That route might at least eventually become possible.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Comeuppance, #PureSchmaltz