Bill Weld: Trump Committed Treason; Execution “The Only Penalty”
by Luis Miguel
TheNewAmerican.com
Tuesday, 24 September 2019
Bill Weld (shown), the former Massachusetts governor challenging President Trump in the Republican primary, suggested that the president should be executed for his controversial phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
[President Trump] has now acknowledged that in a single phone call, right after he suspended $250 million in military aid to Ukraine, he called up the president of Ukraine and pressed him eight times to investigate Joe Biden, who the president thinks is gonna be running against him.
Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election. It couldn’t be clearer. And that’s not just undermining democratic institutions. That is treason. It’s treason, pure and simple. And the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death. That’s the only penalty.
Weld, who ran for vice-president in 2016 on the Libertarian Party ticket, went on to mention impeachment and removal from office as a possible alternative to a criminal case: “The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he can work out a plea deal,” he said.
However, Weld’s claim that death is the only penalty for treason under the U.S. code is false. According to 18 U.S. Code § 2381, a person guilty of treason “shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
The Trump campaign reacted to Weld’s statement. Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told Fox News, “The media’s affliction with Trump Derangement Syndrome has driven them into an actual discussion of the proposed execution of the President of the United States. In severe cases of TDS such as this, immediate consultation with a physician is recommended.”
Weld, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was responding to a whistleblower complaint that claimed President Trump repeatedly tried to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden (Joe Biden’s son) in that country.
The president has denied the allegations and said the Ukrainian government backs him up.
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