Donald Trump's Pants on Fire claim about 'treason' 6FEB18

MORE on NOT MY pres drumpf/trump accusing congressional Democrats of treason for not applauding during his sotu speech. Well donald, you drippings, in a DEMOCRACY we do not genuflect before our president, we do not consider anything the president says as divine and we cherish and defend our Republic's Constitution including the First Amendment guaranteeing everyone's right to freedom of expression, including applauding or not applauding. So NOT MY pres drumpf/trump, accept it or do us all a favor and leave, you neo-nazi fascist pig, and take NOT MY vp pence with you. From PolitiFact......

Donald Trump's Pants on Fire claim about 'treason'

By Louis Jacobson on Tuesday, February 6th, 2018 at 4:51 p.m.

Share The Facts

Donald Trump

President

At the State of the Union address, Democrats, "even on positive news … were like death and un-American. Un-American. Somebody said, ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not?"

a speech near Cincinnati – Monday, February 5, 2018

President Donald Trump’s visit to the Sheffer Corp. near Cincinnati was billed as a chance to discuss the recently enacted tax law. While Trump did discuss the tax law, most coverage of the speech led with a digression in which Trump accused Democrats of treason.

It came as Trump was touting a drop in African-American unemployment, as he had done on several occasions previously. He knocked Democrats for their failure to applaud when he mentioned this during his State of the Union address.

"You’re up there, you’ve got half the room going totally crazy, wild — they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country," Trump said on Feb. 5. "And you have the other side, even on positive news — really positive news, like that — they were like death and un-American.  Un-American. Somebody said, ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much."

There’s actually a very good reason why not: The Constitution.

"It was a profoundly stupid and ignorant statement," said Carlton F.W. Larson, a law professor at the the University of California-Davis who is writing a book about treason and the American Revolution. "There are occasional hard cases where it is debatable whether something constitutes treason. But this is not one of them."

The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article, but White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told NBC News the following day that Trump had been "tongue in cheek," and in the daily White House briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "The president was clearly joking with his comments."

Still, we’ve decided to fact-check Trump’s statement for two reasons. First, the long lead-up to the "treason" comment came off as entirely serious, and while the reference to "treason" itself was uttered in a flip manner, it fell short of being clearly a joke. (Watch the video and judge for yourself here.)

Second, the Constitution is very clear when it comes to the definition of treason.

The Constitution -- which mentions very few crimes specifically -- defines treasonthis way:

"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.

"The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted."

This is a narrow definition. On the most basic level, treason has to occur in wartime, or during an armed rebellion against the government.

With the possible exception of an American "levying war" against U.S. troops in a place like Afghanistan, "the biggest-picture takeaway is that there is no treason occurring on any side now," said Jed Shugerman, a legal historian at Fordham Law School.

Indeed, Shugerman has previously cautioned those on the left who would label members of Trump’s circle as treasonous for allegedly cooperating with Russia during the 2016 election. The most fundamental reason why the word "treason" would be inaccurate in such cases, Shugerman and others argue, is that the United States is not at war with Russia.

"We are not at war with Russia under any fair understanding of the word," he said. Shugerman added that even a notion like "cyberwar" with Russia is a metaphor for war rather than an actual deadly conflict, unless that cyberwar were to escalate to, say, hacking into nuclear power plants with the intent of exploding them.

Calling U.S.-Russia relations "war" is no more accurate than calling the Super Bowl "war" just because the players talk about battle plans and how to attack their enemy, he said.

Because the definition of treason is so narrow, charges have only been brought a few dozen times in the country’s history, and none, apparently, since the end of World War II, which -- perhaps not coincidentally -- was the last officially declared war.

A rendering of the Whiskey Rebellion. (Wikimedia commons)

Charges of treason have been prosecuted in relation to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794; against Aaron Burr (who was acquitted); Thomas W. Dorr, who set up a parallel government of Rhode Island in the 1840s (he was convicted but later pardoned); and a number of cases related to slavery and the Civil War.

There was a flurry of treason cases during and after World War II, including the poet Ezra Pound for pro-Axis propaganda (he was hospitalized for insanity) and the broadcast propagandists known as Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally (both of whom served prison time).

The rarity of treason charges can also be seen in the examples of actions that never drew a treason charge.

When Eugene V. Debs was prosecuted for encouraging draft avoidance during World War I, he was charged with sedition, not treason. During the Cold War, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage charges, not treason. (Espionage does not have to occur during wartime, or even against an enemy.) And Jane Fonda was never charged with treason for allegations of anti-Americanism when she consorted with the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War.

Legal scholars we contacted unanimously said Trump’s words were ill-conceived.

"It’s not only legally frivolous and offensive to suggest that an act of political protest as simple as not clapping isn’t treason, but it’s wholly ignorant of why the Constitution has a treason clause in the first place — to prevent what was a common practice in England at the time, in which the government labeled its political opponents as ‘traitors’ and used that as an excuse to throw them in jail," said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas.

"Being rude and partisan does not come close to the constitutional definition of treason," agreed Robert F. Turner, a fellow at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia.

Michael C.H. McDaniel, the director of Homeland Security Law Programs at Western Michigan University, said there could hardly be a clearer example of protected political speech than the one Trump decided to label treasonous.

"Expressing partisan disagreement with the president is not treason -- in fact, it is political speech, the core speech to which the First Amendment is protecting from the Federal government," he said.

Our ruling

Trump said that at the State of the Union address, Democrats, "even on positive news … were like death and un-American. Un-American. Somebody said, ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not?"

There’s a good reason why not: Declining to applaud the president doesn’t come anywhere near meeting the constitutionally defined threshold of treason, which in any case can’t occur except in wartime. Rather, legal experts agree that it is a clear case of constitutionally protected free speech. We rate the statement Pants on Fire.

About this statement:

Published: Tuesday, February 6th, 2018 at 4:51 p.m.

Researched by: Louis Jacobson

Edited by: Angie Drobnic Holan

Subjects: Legal Issues

Sources:

Donald Trump, remarks at the Sheffer Corporation, Blue Ash, Ohio, Feb. 5, 2018

CNN, "Donald Trump thinks not clapping for him is 'treasonous,' " Feb. 6, 2018

U.S. Constitution, treason provision

San Francisco Chronicle, "Few ever charged or convicted of treason in U.S. history," Dec. 9, 2001

Associated Press, "Past Americans Charged With Treason," Dec. 17, 2001  

Washington Post, "Trump was speaking ‘tongue in cheek’ when he said Democrats were ‘treasonous,’ spokesman says," Feb. 6, 2018

Washington Post, "Five Myths About Treason," Feb. 17, 2017

Washington Post, "The Daily 202: Why Trump flippantly accusing Democrats of ‘treason’ is not a laughing matter," Feb. 6, 2018

Jed Shugerman, "Stop using the word 'treason.' We don’t need to," Feb. 15, 2017

Mark Knoller, tweet, Feb. 6, 2018

Interview with Jed Shugerman, a legal historian at Fordham Law School, Feb. 6, 2018

Email interview with Carlton F.W. Larson, law professor at the the University of California-Davis, Feb. 6, 2018

Email interview with Stephen I. Vladeck, law professor at the University of Texas, Feb. 6, 2018

Email interview with Robert F. Turner, fellow at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia, Feb. 6, 2018

Email interview with Michael C.H. McDaniel, director of Homeland Security Law Programs at Western Michigan University, Feb. 6, 2018

Email interview with Kermit Roosevelt, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Feb. 6, 2018

16 JANUARY, TODAY IS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DAY so why does The Christian Right Does Not Want You To Know About This Day - updated 16JAN16 & Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom & Presidential Proclamation: Religious Freedom Day, 2016

ESTABLISHED in 1992 in recognition of the freedom all Americans have to practice whatever faith they choose or none at all. This right, this freedom, is one of the things that make our nation so great, and establishing a day to recognize this right and to remind us we have this right was a good thing. It is too bad the right wing Christian extremist dismiss this day because it doesn't support their false revisionist history of America being founded as a Christian nation. They are blinded by racism, prejudice, ignorance and hate, characteristics not promoted in the teachings of Jesus Christ. From the article below "So before his death, Jefferson sought to get the last word on what it meant. The Statute, he wrote, contained “within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”  From +Daily Kos .....

The Christian Right Does Not Want You To Know About This Day - updated

By Frederick Clarkson  

Saturday Dec 27, 2014 9:15 PM EST

 

In the heat of our political moment, we sometimes don’t see how our future connects deeply to our past. But the Christian Right does — and they do not like what they see.
The Christian Right has made religious freedom the ideological phalanx of its current campaigns in the culture wars. Religious freedom is now invoked as a way of seeking to derail access to reproductive health services as well as equality for LGBTQ people, most prominently regarding marriage equality.
But history provides little comfort for the theocratic visions of the Christian Right. And that is where our story begins.

For all of the shouting about religious liberty — from the landmark Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case, to the passage of the anti-gay Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Mississippi, and more — there is barely any mention, let alone any observance, of the official national Religious Freedom Day, enacted by Congress in 1992 and recognized every January 16 by an annual presidential proclamation.
The day commemorates the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786.
Why is this seemingly obscure piece of Revolutionary-era legislation so vital? And why doesn’t the Christian Right want you to know anything about it?
The bill, authored by Thomas Jefferson and later pushed through the state legislature by then member of the House of Delegates, James Madison, is regarded as the root of how the framers of the Constitution approached matters of religion and government, and it was as revolutionary as the era in which it was written.
It not only disestablished the Anglican Church as the official state church, but it provided that no one can be compelled to attend any religious institution or to underwrite it with taxes; that individuals are free to believe as they will and that this “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
As a practical matter, this meant that what we believe or don’t believe is not the concern of government and that we are all equal as citizens.
Following the dramatic passage of the Statute in 1786, Madison traveled to Philadelphia, where he served as a principal author of the Constitution in 1787. As a Member of Congress in 1789 he was also a principal author of the First Amendment, which passed in 1791.
Jefferson was well aware that many did not like the Statute, just as they did not like the Constitution and the First Amendment, both of which sought to expand the rights of citizens and deflect claims of churches seeking special consideration.
So before his death, Jefferson sought to get the last word on what it meant. The Statute, he wrote, contained “within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”
That is a powerful and clear statement. Jefferson, almost 200 years ago, refuted the contemporary claims of Christian Right leaders, many of whom not only insist that America was founded as a Christian nation, but that the framers really meant their particular interpretation of Christianity. (And they are sometimes encouraged by a surprisingly wide array of pundits.)
Jefferson further explained that the legislature had specifically rejected proposed language that would have described “Jesus Christ” as “the holy author of our religion.” This was rejected, he reported, “by the great majority.”
No wonder the Christian Right does not want us to remember the original Statute for Religious Freedom — it doesn’t fit their narrative of history! Nor does it justify their vision of the struggles of the political present, or the shining theocratic future they envision.
Religious Freedom Day is nothing but bad news for the likes of Religious Right leaders like Tony Perkins, who argue that Christians who favor marriage equality are not really Christians. They can believe that if they want, but it can make no difference in the eyes of the law. That is probably why on Religious Freedom Day 2014, Perkins made no mention of what Religious Freedom Day is really about — instead using the occasion to denounce president Obama’s approach to religious liberty abroad.
This barely commemorated day provides an opportunity for LGBTQ people, and progressives generally, to reclaim a philosophical, legal and constitutional legacy that the Christian Right is busy trying to redefine for their own purposes.
Alright. So the Christian Right really does not want us to know about this day, but if we do, they certainly don't want us thinking about this stuff -- and so the standard fare of faux outrage about president Obama and various conspiracies against faith in general and conservative Christianity in general is likely to dominate our foreseeable future.
But it doesn't have to be this way. And the Christian Right probably knows it.
When I say that the Christian Right does not want “us” to think about it, I mean everyone who is not the Christian Right and their allies, and especially not LGBTQ people and the otherwise “insufficiently Christian.”  I think that is why the Christian Right is mostly so eerily quiet about it, even though religious freedom is so central to their political program.
But what if we did?
What if we seized this day to think dynamically about the religious freedoms we take for granted at our peril; freedom that is in danger of being redefined beyond recognition.  What if we decided to seize this day to consider our best values as a nation and advance the cause of equal rights for all?
If we did, we might begin by recalling the extraordinary challenge faced by the framers of the Constitution when they gathered in Philadelphia. They met to create one nation out of 13 fractious colonies still finding their way after a successful revolt against the British Empire; and contending with a number of powerful and well-established state churches and a growing and religiously diverse population.
Their answer?   Religious equality.  And it is rooted in Jefferson’s bill. Let's remind ourselves about the origins of the bill.
Jefferson wrote the first draft in 1777 — just after having authored the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  And it was James Madison who finally got the legislation passed through the Virginia legislature in 1786, just months before he traveled to Philadelphia to be a principal author of the Constitution.  The Virginia Statute states that no one can be compelled to attend or support any religious institution, or otherwise be restrained in their beliefs, and that this “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities . . .”
The Constitution, framed according to “The Virginia Plan,” drafted primarily by Madison, contains no mention of God or Christianity.  In fact, the final text’s only mention of religion is in the proscription of “religious tests for public office,” found in Article 6.
In other words — Jefferson’s words — one’s religious identity, or lack thereof, has no bearing on one’s “civil capacities.”
If we thought about the meaning of Religious Freedom Day, we might start thinking about things like that — and not capitulate to the Christian Right’s effort to redefine religious freedom to include a license for business and institutional leaders (both government and civil) to impose their religious beliefs on employees and the public.
If we thought about things like that, then we might consider them in light of a host of initiatives in recent years, often advanced under the banner of religious freedom, but which, in fact, restrict the religious freedom of others.
We might consider, for example, the recent federal court decision in the case of General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Cooper, which found that North Carolina’s ban on clergy performing marriage ceremonies without first obtaining a civil marriage license, was unconstitutional.
Since state law declared that same-sex couples could not get marriage licenses, this subjected clergy in the United Church of Christ, the Alliance of Baptists, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, among others, to potential prosecution for performing a religious ceremony.
As religious equality advances, so does equal rights for all. So you can see why the Christian Right might not want people—people like us—thinking like Jefferson. And that is why we must.
Religious Freedom Day was the brainchild of some of the town fathers and mothers of Richmond, Virginia, who have since created a museum dedicated to education about the Virginia Statute (PDF).
But we need more than a museum to breathe more life and liberty into the living Constitution.  Not much goes on around the country on Religious Freedom Day, January 16th.
There is no time like the present to seize this day.

This post is adapted from two recent columns at LGBTQ Nation, and is crossposted from Talk to Action.

UPDATE  There has been some understandable confusion about one important point. I have written elsewhere that the web site ReligiousFreedomDay.com, which comes up first in a Google search for Religious Freedom Day is not what it seems.  The group behind it is a small California evangelical Christian Right agency called Gateways to Better Education, headed by longtime activist, Eric Buehrer. This group is part of a wider movement with a long history of efforts to hijack, or compromise, public schools in order to promote its religious views and to evangelize children. (This is detailed in The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, by Katherine Stewart.) Gateways is unambiguous about its intentions:   “Gateways to Better Education is a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 to help public schools teach about the important contribution the Bible and Christianity make to the world.”  They insist that “Religious Freedom Day is not ‘celebrate-our-diversity day.'”

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Jefferson's tombstone. The inscription, as he stipulated, reads Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 (however it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779)^[1] by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. On January 16, 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Catholics and Jews as well as members of all Protestant denominations.^[2] The statute was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph.^[3]

Text of statute

An Act for establishing religious Freedom.
Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;
That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,
That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;
That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;
That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,
That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;
And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.^[4]

Presidential Proclamation: Religious Freedom Day, 2016

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION 

Since our country's founding, religious freedom has been heralded as one of our most cherished ideals. The right to practice religion freely has brought immigrants from all over the world to our shores, often in the face of great adversity, so they could live their lives in accordance with the dictates of their consciences. Some of America's earliest settlers, the Pilgrims, arrived at our shores in search of a more tolerant society, free from religious persecution. Since that time, people of many religious traditions have added their own threads to the fabric of our Nation, helping advance a profound and continuous vindication of the idea of America.
When the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was adopted on January 16, 1786, it formed a blueprint for what would become the basis for the protection of religious liberty enshrined in our Constitution. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the statute proclaims that "all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." The First Amendment prohibits Government from establishing religion, and it protects the free exercise of every faith. Our Government does not sponsor a religion, nor does it pressure anyone to practice a particular faith, or any faith at all. The United States stands for the protection of equal rights for all people to practice their faith freely, without fear or coercion, and as Americans, we understand that when people of all religions are accepted and are full and equal members of our society, we are all stronger and freer.
Our commitment to religious freedom has fostered unprecedented religious diversity and freedom of religious practice. But these ideals are not self-executing. Rather, they require a sustained commitment by each generation to uphold and preserve them. Here at home, my Administration is working to preserve religious liberty and enforce civil rights laws that protect religious freedom -- including laws that protect employees from religious discrimination and require reasonable accommodation of religious practices on the job. We will keep upholding the right of religious communities to establish places of worship and protecting the religious rights of those so often forgotten by society, such as incarcerated persons and individuals confined to institutions. We will also continue to protect students from discrimination and harassment that is based on their faith, and we will continue to enforce hate crime laws, including those perpetrated based on a person's actual or perceived religion. This work is crucial, particularly given the recent spike in reports of threats and violence against houses of worship, children, and adults simply because of their religious affiliation.
As we strive to uphold religious freedom at home, we recognize that this basic element of human dignity does not stop at our shores, and we work to promote religious freedom around the globe. We are working with a broad coalition against those who have subjected religious minorities to unspeakable violence and persecution, and we are mobilizing religious and civic leaders to defend vulnerable religious communities. In addition, we are calling for the elimination of improper restrictions that suppress religious practice, coordinating with governments around the world to promote religious freedom for citizens of every faith, and expanding training for our diplomats on how to monitor and advocate for this freedom. All people deserve the fundamental dignity of practicing their faith free from fear, intimidation, and violence.
On Religious Freedom Day, let us recommit ourselves to protecting religious minorities here at home and around the world. May we remember those who have been persecuted, tortured, or murdered for their faith and reject any politics that targets people because of their religion, including any suggestion that our laws, policies, or practices should single out certain faiths for disfavored treatment. And as one Nation, let us state clearly and without equivocation that an attack on any faith is an attack on every faith and come together to promote religious freedom for all.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 16, 2016 as Religious Freedom Day. I call on all Americans to commemorate this day with events and activities that teach us about this critical foundation of our Nation's liberty, and that show us how we can protect it for future generations at home and around the world.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fortieth.
BARACK OBAMA

We Were Sued by a Billionaire Political Donor (frank vandersloot & melaleuca). We Won. Here's What Happened. 9OKT15

CONGRATS TO MOTHER JONES! Thank you for not giving up the good fight, for remaining true to kick ass investigative journalism. It really is a shame, and a disgrace that you don't have more competition. From +Mother Jones .....

Today we are happy to announce a monumental legal victory for Mother Jones: A judge in Idaho has ruled in our favor on all claims in a defamation case filed by a major Republican donor, Frank VanderSloot, and his company, Melaleuca Inc. In a decision issued Tuesday, the court found that Mother Jones did not defame VanderSloot or Melaleuca because "all of the statements at issue are non-actionable truth or substantial truth." The court also found that the statements were protected as fair comment under the First Amendment.

Read the full ruling here.

This is the culmination of a lengthy, expensive legal saga that began three years ago when the 2012 presidential primaries were in full swing. On February 6, 2012, we published an article about VanderSloot after it emerged that his company, Melaleuca, and its subsidiaries had given $1 million to Mitt Romney's super-PAC. The piece noted that VanderSloot had gone to unusual lengths to oppose gay rights in Idaho, and that Melaleuca had run into trouble with regulators.
VanderSloot's lawyers sent us a letter complaining about the article. We reviewed their concerns and posted a correction about a few details. So far, not an uncommon scenario; it's something every newsroom deals with from time to time.
But that September, we broke the story of Romney's 47 percent comments, which some have argued cost the GOP the White House. Four months later, VanderSloot—who was also one of Gov. Romney's national finance chairs—filed a defamation lawsuit against Mother Jones as well as Stephanie Mencimer, the reporter of the article, and Monika personally (for her tweet about the piece).
People have asked us whether we think these two things were connected, and the honest answer is that we have no idea. What we do know is that the take-no-prisoners legal assault from VanderSloot and Melaleuca has consumed a good part of the past two and a half years and has cost millions (yes, millions) in legal fees. In the course of the litigation, VanderSloot sued a former small-town Idaho newspaper reporter whose confrontation with him we mentioned in our article. His lawyers asked a judge to let them rifle through the internal records of the Obama campaign. They deposed a representative of the campaign in pursuit of a baseless theory that Mother Jones conspired with Obama's team to defame VanderSloot. They tried to get one of our lawyers disqualified because his firm had once done work for Melaleuca. They intrusively questioned our employees—our reporter was grilled about whether she had attended a Super Bowl party the night she finalized the article.

This was not a dispute over a few words. It was a push, by a superrich businessman and donor, to wipe out news coverage that he disapproved of.

Legally, what we fought over was what, precisely, the terms "bashing" and "outing" meant in the context of our article. (Read the decision for yourself.) But make no mistake: This was not a dispute over a few words. It was a push, by a superrich businessman and donor, to wipe out news coverage that he disapproved of. Had he been successful, it would have been a chilling indicator that the 0.01 percent can control not only the financing of political campaigns, but also media coverage of those campaigns.
Throughout this lawsuit, VanderSloot appeared to be engaged in rewriting his own history of opposing the expansion of civil rights to LGBT people. His complaint focused on two things: He asserted that we defamed him by "falsely stating that Mr. VanderSloot 'bashed' and 'publicly out[ed] a reporter.'" He also claimed that Monika's tweet about the article defamed him by referring to "gay-bashing."
In a way, there was something ironically hopeful about this: A conservative Republican—someone who not long ago was quoted saying it was "child abuse" to put a film about gay parents on public television—had apparently come to believe that to call him a gay-basher was so damaging to his reputation that he must fight the argument at virtually any cost. It's a sign of just how far America has moved in just a few years that this entire case  felt like something from a time capsule.
To be sure, VanderSloot has much at stake in reworking his public profile. He's now widely recognized as one of the megadonors who will help determine who wins the 2016 GOP nomination. He has vowed to be even more "financially active" than he was in 2012, when he raised between $2 million and $5 million for Romney. In burnishing his image as a national figure, he might like people to forget about certain aspects of his past, such as the fact that he financed an ad campaign to amend the state constitution to ban marriage equality. (One of the ads pointed out that such an amendment would also prevent marriages between "a person and an animal.")
"I have learned a great deal about the debate of homosexuality and sexual orientation," he wrote in an op-ed this past February. "I believe that gay people should have the same freedoms and rights as any other individual."
That's a fascinating story. But it's also a frightening one. If VanderSloot had prevailed, he would have proven that with enough money to throw at lawyers, you can wipe the slate. You can go after those who document the past and the present, and if you can't make them cry "uncle" you can at least append a legal asterisk to their work forevermore.
That's why we've pushed back. Frank VanderSloot may have evolved along with America. We respect that. But it doesn't erase the past.

Perhaps fittingly, a major element in this case about the right of the press to afflict the powerful was a piece of investigative journalism. In 2005, a young reporter at the 26,000-circulation Post Register in Idaho Falls got a tip about a pedophile in the local Boy Scouts. The reporter, Peter Zuckerman, dug into the story and discovered legal documents indicating that Scout leaders had received multiple warnings about a camp employee but had not removed him. The documents also indicated that the man's bishop in the Mormon Church had been warned about him as early as 1988 and had sent him to counseling, but had told the Scouts years later that he saw no reason the man should not be a camp leader. In one case, according to a court decision, a 10-year-old's parents told Scout leaders they were concerned about the man's behavior. When he was arrested the following year, Scout leaders learned that he had molested the child, but decided not to tell the parents.
The series made a huge splash. It won a string of prestigious journalism awards. It became the subject of a PBS documentary. But there were also angry phone calls to the paper. Advertisers pulled out. And Frank VanderSloot got involved.
VanderSloot is reportedly the richest man in Idaho, and among the most powerful. His company, Melaleuca, sells tea-tree oil supplements and personal-care products via an Avon-like system of individual marketers who recruit others to sell. His net worth has been estimated as $1.2 billion, and for decades he has been a major power in Idaho politics, especially on LGBT issues. He financed an ad campaign that helped defeat a state Supreme Court justice on grounds that she might vote to legalize same-sex marriage. His wife gave $100,000 to the campaign to pass the anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 in California.

Throughout this lawsuit, VanderSloot appeared to be engaged in rewriting his own history of opposing the expansion of civil rights to LGBT people.

In the late 1990s, he helped pay for billboards across the state protesting Idaho public television's plan to air a film intended to teach kids respect for different kinds of families. The government, he said, should not "be spending our tax dollars to bring the homosexual lifestyle into the classroom and introduce it to our children as being normal, right, acceptable, and good and an appropriate lifestyle for them or anyone else to be living."
VanderSloot has long been active in the Mormon church, and he was a strong supporter of the Boy Scouts. When the Post Register's series ran, he swung into action. He took out full-page ads in the paper attacking the investigation and Peter Zuckerman, the 26-year-old lead reporter on the series. One of the ads noted that Zuckerman had written an article about his sexual orientation for a journalism site while on a fellowship in Florida. The ad said he had declared "that he is homosexual and admitted that it is very difficult for him to be objective on things he feels strongly about."
"Much has been said on a local radio station and throughout the community," VanderSloot's ad continued, "speculating that the Boy Scouts' position of not letting gay men be Scout Leaders, and the LDS Church's position that marriage should be between a man and a woman may have caused Zuckerman to attack the scouts and the LDS Church through his journalism."
"We think it would be very unfair for anyone to conclude that is what is behind Zuckerman's motives," the ad continued. "It would be wrong to do. The only known facts are, that for whatever reason, Zuckerman chose to weave a story that unfairly, and without merit, paints Scout leaders and church leaders to appear unscrupulous, and blame[s] them for the molestation of little children." Decoding the message between the lines is left as an exercise for the reader.
The ads had a dramatic impact. Though Zuckerman had been open about his sexual orientation before he came to Idaho, his editor Dean Miller later wrote that in Idaho Falls the reporter "was not 'out' to anyone but family, a few colleagues at the paper (including me), and his close friends." Zuckerman had already gotten some negative reactions after a local talk show with a tiny audience discussed his sexual orientation. But according to Miller's article and Zuckerman's testimony in the litigation, things got much worse after VanderSloot's ads. "Strangers started ringing Peter's doorbell at night," Miller said. "Despite the harassment, Peter kept coming to work and chasing down leads on other pedophiles in the Grand Teton Council. I spoke at his church one Sunday and meant it when I said that I hope my son grows into as much of a man as Peter had." (Later that year, Zuckerman moved to Portland, where he took a job with the Oregonian while his partner was elected the city's first openly gay mayor.)
Fast forward to 2012. Miller's article about the Boy Scouts controversy was one of the stories that our reporter Stephanie Mencimer found after VanderSloot's name popped up in the January campaign finance filings. It was the first presidential election of the dark-money era, and Mother Jones' politics team had zeroed in on the huge new super-PACs being created to pump unrestricted money into campaigns of both parties. VanderSloot stood out because Melaleuca was among the top contributors to Restore Our Future, the super-PAC supporting Romney. Mencimer wrote an article about him that included a few paragraphs on his history of anti-gay-rights activism and his run-in with the Post Register.
Those paragraphs are what VanderSloot and Melaleuca sued us over. They filed the suit in Bonneville County, Idaho, and asked for damages of up to $74,999—exactly $1 under the amount at which the lawsuit could have been removed to federal court. That ensured the case would be decided by jurors from the community where his company is the biggest employer and the sponsor of everything from the minor league ballpark to the Fourth of July fireworks.
Since then, Mother Jones and our insurance company have had to spend at least $2.5 million defending ourselves. We also took up the defense of Zuckerman, whom VanderSloot sued halfway through the case for talking to Rachel Maddow about his experience. (VanderSloot did not sue MSNBC or its deep-pocketed parent company, Comcast. Make of that what you will.)
Here's a moment that gives you a sense of what it was like. At one point, Zuckerman was subjected to roughly 10 hours of grilling by VanderSloot's lawyers about every detail of the controversy in Idaho Falls, including the breakup with his boyfriend of five years. (VanderSloot also threatened to sue the ex-boyfriend, backing off only after he recanted statements he'd made about the Boy Scouts episode.) As the lawyers kept probing, Zuckerman broke down and cried as he testified that the time after the ads appeared was one of the darkest periods of his life. VanderSloot, who had flown to Portland for the occasion, sternly looked on. (His lawsuit against Zuckerman is ongoing.)
And that wasn't the end of it. VanderSloot's legal team subpoenaed the Obama campaign, which had run ads naming him as a major Republican donor. Apparently they believed we had somehow fed the campaign that information—never mind that our article, and the Federal Election Commission data that prompted it—was on the internet for anyone to read.
When officials from the Obama campaign refused to turn over their records—offering to confirm under oath that there had been no communication between them and Mother Jones—VanderSloot's lawyers dragged them into court, resulting in the spectacle of a major GOP donor seeking access to the Democratic campaign's emails. His lawyers did the same thing to a political researcher who had gathered information on VanderSloot and who also had no connection to Mother Jones.
This kind of legal onslaught is enormously taxing. Last year, Lowell Bergman, the legendary 60 Minutes producer (whose story of exposing Big Tobacco was chronicled in the Oscar-nominated film The Insider), talked about a "chill in the air" as investigative reporters confront billionaires who can hurt a news organization profoundly whether or not they win in court: "There are individuals and institutions with very deep pockets and unaccountable private power who don't like the way we report. One example is a case involving Mother Jones…A superrich plaintiff is spending millions of dollars while he bleeds the magazine and ties up its staff."
Litigation like this, Bergman said, is "being used to tame the press, to cause publishers and broadcasters to decide whether to stand up or stand down, to self-censor."
Over the past three years, we've had to face that decision over and over again. Should we just cave in—retract our article or let VanderSloot get a judgment against us—and make this all go away? It wasn't an easy choice, but we decided to fight back. Because it's not just about us. It's about everyone who relies on Mother Jones to report the facts as we find them. It's about the Fourth Estate's check on those who would use their outsized influence and ability to finance political campaigns to control the direction of the country. It's about making sure that in a time when media is always under pressure to buckle to politicians or big-money interests, you can trust that someone will stand up and go after the truth.
And it's about one more thing. Just a few years ago, no one thought that America could move so far, so fast, toward respecting the rights of gays and lesbians. No one thought that by 2015 same-sex couples would have a constitutional right to marry or, for that matter, that the Boy Scouts would rescind their ban against gay troop leaders and the Mormon Church would back them up. That happened because a lot of people stood up to threats and discrimination. They came out to their families and communities. They declared their love for everyone to see. They didn't let themselves be intimidated. Nor will we.
Postscript: In her decision Tuesday, the district court judge found in our favor on every single claim VanderSloot had made. She also included a passage expressing her own opinion of Mother Jones, and of political news coverage in general. For his part, Vandersloot issued a statement saying he had been "absolutely vindicated" and announced that he was setting up a $1 million fund to pay the legal expenses of people wanting to sue Mother Jones or other members of the "liberal press." We'll leave it with the reaction from our lawyer, James Chadwick: This was "a little like the LA Clippers claiming they won the NBA Finals. I think everyone can see what's going on here."

Monika Bauerlein

CEO

Monika Bauerlein is CEO of Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here. You can also follow her on Twitter. RSS | Twitter

Clara Jeffery

Editor-in-Chief

Clara Jeffery is Editor-in-Chief of Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here. You can also follow her on Twitter. RSS | Twitter