President Donald Trump was asked about his recent accusations of “treason,” and on Thursday afternoon named the FBI officials involved in investigating him, claiming they are guilty of the capital crime.
The President, as The Washington Post notes, has no idea what the word actually means.
“Sir,” NBC News White House Correspondent Peter Alexander said to Trump, “the Constitution says treason is punishable by death.”
The President nodded.
“You’ve accused your adversaries of treason,” Alexander continued. “Who specifically are you accusing of treason?” he challenged.
“Well,” Trump, only too happy to entertain the question, said, “I think a number of people. And I think what you look is that they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person.”
Trying to “take down the wrong person” is not treason, despite the President’s propensity for equating himself with the federal government and with the country overall.
“If you look at Comey,” Trump added, referring to Jim Comey, the FBI Director who Trump fired, the act that kicked off the start of the Mueller investigation. “If you look at McCabe,” he said, referring to his former deputy director of the FBI.
“And if you look at people probably higher than that,” Trump said, an apparent attack on Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and President Barack Obama, who were both in charge when the Russia investigation (not the Mueller investigation) first began. Trump has previously, falsely accused them of spying on him and wiretapping him.
“If you look at Strzok, if you look at his lover Lisa Page, his wonderful lover. The two lovers,” Trump said, mockingly, referring to the former FBI attorney and to former Chief of the FBI’s Counterespionage Section Peter Strzok.
Calling it “an absolutely ridiculous assertion,” The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump writes, “unless Comey and McCabe raised an army to take on the U.S. military or provided direct aid to countries who are officially at war with the U.S. — countries to be named later — they didn’t commit treason. By definition.”
Watch: