Is Following An Extradition Treaty An Elaborate Political Conspiracy?

Glenn Greenwald, compulsive Fox guest and professional agitee, has written many smart and important things over the course of his career about abuses of power by the United States government. This is not one of those times.

Glenn is agitated because the United States decided to drop a charge of conspiracy to commit campaign finance violations it had previously brought against infamous manchild Sam Bankman-Fried, the answer to the question “how bad could it be, being raised by two Stanford professors?” Glenn views this as a conspiracy to protect SBF, Democrats, and presumably Hunter Biden:

Glenn’s point is dumb. Since Glenn is absolutely not dumb, Glenn’s speaking from lazy ignorance, bad faith, or blinding hatred of the Democratic establishment and U.S. Department of Justice. Those things are not optimal for accuracy. In fact, the United States dropped campaign finance charges against SBF to comply with its treaty obligations.

The Extradition Treaty and the Rule of Specialty

The United States has an extradition treaty with the Bahamas, as it does with many countries. Here it is:

94 922 Bahamas Extradition Treaty

4.27MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The treaty sets forth the procedures for the United States and the Bahamas to request extradition of accused criminals from each other, and governs which crimes qualify for extradition. Like most extradition treaties, this one incorporates the Rule of Specialty. That familiar rule provides that, with a few exceptions, the requesting country (here, the U.S.) can only prosecute a defendant for crimes for which the extraditing country (here, the Bahamas) agreed to extradite them. This is intended to prevent requesting countries from saying “please send us this dude, he murdered someone,” and then prosecuting them for sedition or blasphemy or something else unacceptable to the extraditing country. There are a few exceptions, the most important of which is that the requesting country can ask the sending country for its consent to prosecute the defendant for additional crimes beyond those in the extradition order. Here’s how the United States Attorney’s Manual describes those exceptions and how federal prosecutors should deal with them:

Every extradition treaty limits extradition to certain offenses. As a corollary, all extradition treaties restrict prosecution or punishment of the fugitive to the offense for which extradition was granted unless (1) an offense was committed after the fugitive's extradition or (2) the fugitive remains in the jurisdiction that requested extradition after expiration