Politics - News Analysis

Trump Just Lost It On Twitter and Called For His Enemies to Be Jailed: ‘This Was TREASON!’

Donald Trump claimed on Friday that his 2016 campaign had been “conclusively spied on” by the Obama administration while calling the charge akin to “treason” and demanding jail time for those behind it.

And like usual, he provides absolutely no proof whatsoever.

In a tweet, the president said “nothing like this has ever happened” while calling for prison sentences.

“A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!” he continued.

Trump’s alleging of “TREASON” is a very big deal, and takes the allegations to an entirely new level. He is wrong, however, when he says “TREASON means long jail sentences” as treason is actually punishable by the death penalty.

At issue is surveillance operation that the Obama administration’s Justice Department approved as evidence came to light that Russian intelligence officials were working to influence the outcome of the 2016 general election (which has since been revealed to benefit the Trump campaign) and if they were actively trying to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

Like so many issues in this highly divided political time, a big challenge in this story is semantics. Some would say that what occurred was surveillance that was part of an appropriately approved investigation into the threat of a foreign power. Trump and his base, however, believe that if the surveillance included Trump campaign officials, then their political operations were illegally spied upon.

Twitter was quick to call Trump out:

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