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Notes -
When does "criticism" of the current military action in Iran (and by criticism I mean a variety of behaviors from our political leadership to randoms on the internet) become "treason" (both in the firm prosecutable sort and the "historically your neighbors would have stopped talking to you or maybe chased you out of town" sort)?
I get it, people are mad at Trump, Republicans, America, the Jews, Israel, whatever.
I get it.
Many people would rather have had us not get here. But we are here. The ship has sailed.
If everyone returns to their corners now at the very least we have billions of dollars in economic dysfunction, realistically we have tremendous destabilization in the region which is going cause the biggest problems we've seen in decades. In truth, we call it all off now, Iran will probably finish arming themselves and nuke a civilian population, likely Israel. Even the most anti-semitic person who ever lived should be able to understand how bad doing that could go. It would likely be the worst thing that's ever happened just from the resulting chaos.
So we are stuck.
But you see a lot of people with an agenda trying to defang the war effort or get it cancelled or whatever. Many probably don't expect it to happen, they are just trying to set up Trump looking bad. An example of this is probably the war powers resolutions.
But at that point you have overt politicking putting American, Israeli, Middle Eastern lives (and maybe everyone else?) at risk because you want to slightly increase the chance you can spend two years repeatedly impeaching Trump.
I think that's kind of treasonous? Maybe not the executing kind, but definitely the "holy shit what are you doing kind."
Like the war. Hate the war. It's happened. Criticizing how we got here is understandable, but I think we need to be careful.
Make the PR bad enough and we stop with the job half done and everyone loses.
First - Trump will get Congress on board. He may have to pay yuuge price, but even the biggest doves and biggest morons in Congress know that US trying to overthrow regime and failing means the empire is over and there will be many more challengers in the years to come. There is reason why Russia is hellbent on finishing the SMO on their own terms. If you want to know how international relationships work - go watch the Godfather. So far USA haven't failed in overthrowing a regime after committing the needed forces.
Second - speaking against the special military operation is not treason.
Third - the best time to have dialogue about the war was before and during the protests. The second best was after them. The third best is now.
Fourth - the year is still young. There is chance that the US may actually win with low bodycount.
The Logan Act and saying things on the internet can get to a very stretchy version of a violation. The law is probably too vague even before this stretch but nowadays some dude in Iowa can literally talk to Putin directly on the internet.
Unless he got paid for speaking pro Russian propaganda - I am not sure how the dude in Iowa will be held responsible. You are totally allowed to spew enemy propaganda. Just not commercially.
Ever since Flynn I am paranoid on lawfare and how stretchy something like treason or sedition could be.
Even something small like talking to a Russian bot on a message board telling them “everyone in my house would fight against Trump” would be giving an adversary a small amount of intelligence
News article for whippersnappers who don't remember thislike me
Text of acts admitted to in guilty plea
It was nowhere near that simple, but to be fair, you really had to be there. Once the long-awaited OIG report dropped detailing serious Shenanigans[1], Flynn motioned to withdraw his guilty plea. Here is a supplement that details the misconduct of Covington & Burling LLP, his original lawyers in his case, and here[2] is the supplement that spells out the relevant parts of the FBI and DOJ misconduct in his case. As new evidence, such as the official closing of the Flynn investigation on 1/4/17, and an email documenting an unofficial promise not to prosecute Mike Jr.[3], continued to accumulate, Brandon Van Grack was removed from the case. By May, the DOJ was motioning to dismiss, but even as exculpatory evidence continued to be produced, the circus just kept going.
Revisiting all of this the better part of a decade later, I've had significant difficulty locating the some of the supplements and exhibits that I remember reading that provide even more context, which is frustrating to say the least. It's admittedly possible that they have all blurred together in my memory, as I followed all of that business rather closely. This is a preface to say that what I have linked here is merely what I hope is a decent sampling of the evidence underlying the smorgasbord of bullshit that was the Flynn prosecution. Alas, I have spent the bulk of my evening typing this lone reply rather than attending to my own needs and despite (allegedly) knowing better. More fool me.
[1]. As with all good political documents, the devil is in the details while the executive summary is considerably more...
neuteredtidy. More importantly, Flynn's new counsel had repeatedly filed motions to compel Brady material, aka exculpatory evidence, which the FBI and DOJ both denied existed.[2]. This supplement rebutted the DOJ's downplaying of the OIG report, saying that it wasn't that bad and that it didn't pertain to Flynn, which considering that Flynn was in fact Crossfire Razor,
was a lie"lacked candor" in OIG-speak.[3]. This bit was relevant both because Van Grack denied threatening to prosecute Flynn Jr. and also because he would have been required to report an official agreement, hence the unofficial nature of the offer detailed in the email.
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