Running through my mind is a bit attributed on "BrainyQuote" to John Harington, but now part of folklore and popular across the political spectrum, if especially on the Right. I give a verse version:
"'Treason doth never prosper!'" Hmmm ...
"What is the reason? ...
"For if treason prosper,
None dare call it treason."
Treason against the United States consists "only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort," which is clearest in times of war, declared by the Congress — which we are not in. Still, Lyndon Johnson had a point in accusing Richard Nixon of treason for his dealing with the Vietnamese to continue what we call the Vietnam War — and the same for Joe Biden's exclamation for the Russian Affair if it turns out to be a soft coup.
Anyway, in the larger "Russian Affair," we may be looking at "conspiracy against the United States" in an everyday-English meaning of people's working together in ways that undermined a crucial democratic aspect — elections — of the "mixt constitution" of the American Republic. You can't get a clever saying out of that or a bumper sticker or a chant, but it would be a deep betrayal.
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