Bribery. 18 US Code Section 201
It has frustrated the hell out of me, that you [many argue strenuously] can’t call it treason for a president to use the office to sell out the country, make policy benefiting a foreign adversary, for personal benefit.
Conceding arguendo that you need a shooting war to invoke treason, the name of the crime I’ve been groping for is bribery, a felony punishable under 18 US Code Section 201.
It ain’t something pissant like violating campaign finance laws.
Or quaint like the emoluments clause (with no prescribed punishment).
It’s the quid pro quo. That is the undeniable, undismissable, evil going on here.
So what is Trump getting in exchange for lavishing all that love on Putin?
Maybe it was help with the campaign. Perhaps.
But I’m convinced it was the years of financial entanglements, Russian dirty money bailing him out when he failed in business, allowing him to continue playing the bigshot billionaire.
Now that may take one or both of the following forms: Extortion, Russia is blackmailing him. And/or: he owes Putin. Putin is now calling in his IOU, and this is one creditor Trump dare not stiff.