- A federal advisory group recommended in 2020 that staffers at two libertarian think tanks – the Cato Institute and the Mercatus Institute – be charged with treason.
- That recommendation was made subcommittee with MARAD, a federal agency that is the steward of the U.S. maritime industry under the Department of Transportation.
- Cato Institute learned of that recommendation through documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request. It stated: “charge all past and present members of the Cato and Mercatus Institutes with treason.”
- The regulators apparently were annoyed that the think tanks opposed the Jones Act, a 1920 law that mandates that all shipping between U.S. ports be conducted by ships that are U.S.-built, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed primarily by Americans.
