"Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency," the Times reported.

That was the Times's second recent treasonous offense. After the Times published a story on how 79-year-old Trump was "slowing down physically" and "showing signs of fatigue" in his second term, Trump declared on Truth Social on December 9: "There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me!" Trump proclaimed that "it's seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean 'THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.'"

The following week, Trump raised eyebrows by repeatedly falling asleep during a televised cabinet meeting. The Justice Department has not filed treason charges against websites that reposted videos of Trump fading off.

Trump is using practically a mirror image of treason compared to the standard the Founding Fathers canonized. Because America's founders had seen horrific political abuses in England in prior times, the Constitution specifically and narrowly defined treason: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

President Trump is instead using a Lese Majeste standard of treason, presuming that anything that denigrates the supreme leader is a betrayal of the nation.

Trump's contortion of treason is no novelty in American politics. In the wake of the January 6, 2021 clash at the US Capitol, many Democrats wanted to label any protester who entered the Capitol as a traitor. Even before Trump supporters poured into the Capitol that day, Democrats were accusing them of sedition for filing legal challenges to the 2020 election results, including popular Twitter hashtags such as #GOPSeditiousTraitors and #TreasonAgainstAmerica.

Turn back the clock to 2006, and it was congressional Republicans leading the charge to condemn the media for treason. On June 23, 2006, the New York Times revealed that the Bush administration had been illegally vacuuming up financial records passing through a Belgian hub for international banking. According to Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey, the US government may have conducted "hundreds of thousands" of warrantless searches of personal financial data. The Bush White House quickly re-labeled the surveillance program the "Terrorist Finance Tracking Program" and thus the media became guilty of helping terrorists destroy America. Treasury Secretary John Snow denounced the Times article as "irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide." "Freedom-loving people" miraculously became a trump card against the First Amendment.