Trump crosses the line from troll to potential criminal

Throughout the primary and now the general election campaign, observers have asked which line Trump crosses will finally doom his campaign. He launched his campaign by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists, and survived. He bragged about the size of his genitals in a televised debate, and survived.

The Onion perfectly summarized this widening gyre in December.

I realize it’s getting cruelly ironic at this point, but I think this time Increasingly Nervous Man (read: me) might be right.

At a rally today, the GOP nominee for president literally asked a foreign government to hack American infrastructure to reveal classified information to him to affect our elections. This is not just an offensive or crude remark; it’s treason.

Trump to Russia: I hope you find the missing Hillary emails (some of which could contain classified intelligence) pic.twitter.com/fy919ChGuE

— Justin Green (@JGreenDC) July 27, 2016

Some have brushed this off as “joking” or “trolling”, but that’s irrelevant. Will Russia take it that way? Is Putin sitting in Moscow chortling to himself, “Oh, that Donald. Of course we won’t do that. Nyet. He’s clearly joking.” Given Trump’s overall policy toward Russia and his mutual embrace of Putin himself, it’s not safe to consider it a joke.

The National Security Council shouldn’t consider it a joke. The Department of Justice shouldn’t consider it a joke. US Marshalls shouldn’t consider it a joke. They should investigate him and try him for treason if they deem it necessary.

It would at least be interesting to see if Trump gets the same mens rea deference that Hillary Clinton did when the FBI declined to recommend charges against her for her mishandling of classified information.