OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard tore into Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney this week after he previously accused her of treason.
During a House hearing on the weaponization of the DOJ and FB, Gabbard attended as one of the witnesses and offered her opinion on the “corrupt” relationship between Big Tech and the federal government.
Gabbard noted that when she ran for president in 2020, a woman approached her and demanded to know if she was working for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those accusations were first uttered by twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who accused Gabbard of being “groomed by Putin.”
Gabbard then noted that Romney made a similar accusation, claiming that she had spread “treasonous lies” when she spoke about the conflict in Ukraine.
Below is Romney’s tweet:
Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 13, 2022
Gabbard made sure to issue a scathing response to Romney during the hearing:
“More recently, US senator Mitt Romney accused me of treason, a crime that is punishable by death under our laws. I challenged him to back this serious allegation up with evidence. What was this based on? There was no response, no explanation, no evidence, and certainly no apology,” Gabbard said.
“Now, these accusations are often shrugged off as ‘well hey, it’s politics, people say things about each other all the time.’ But that may be easy for some of you to say, but for somebody who wears the uniform, this is serious, and it’s serious not only to me but to my fellow servicemembers and veterans, every one of us making a decision at some point in our lives to raise our right hand, prepared and volunteering to lay our life down for this country,” Gabbard declared.
“What does that mean in reality? It means that before every deployment, we have to make peace in our own hearts with the possibility that we may not come home. It means writing letters to our loved ones, trying to find the words,” she added.
WATCH:
The former representative defended herself back in April 2022 when she spoke to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“I still serve in the U.S. Army reserves today. I’m a lieutenant colonel, and 19 years ago when I enlisted in the military, I took an oath to support and defend our Constitution,” she said.
“When powerful and influential people basically threaten and intimidate people into silence as Mitt Romney … [is] doing, they’re hoping to achieve that effect that if anybody dares speak out against the government … [or] criticize whatever the washed, permanent Washington establishment narrative is, then you will be smeared … as a treasonous traitor,” the former representative said.
The cease and desist letter from her attorneys accused Romney of “false and defamatory statements” and asked Romney to settle with gabbard before litigation, Newsweek reported.
“While your tweet lacked any context, we surmise that your tweet was made in reference to a video Representative Gabbard published on Twitter that same day,” the letter said.
“In her video, Representative Gabbard called for a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine so that any biological laboratories in Ukraine could be secured,” it said.
Tulsi Gabbard says she sent cease and desist letters to Mitt Romney and Keith Olbermann after she was called a traitor. pic.twitter.com/mcrapG1PnB
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 21, 2022
Treason is a heavy accusation defined as something that “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.”
And the punishment, if found guilty, as defined by the Constitution could consist of “death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
