Dear Editor,

I am incredulous about the latest Trump insults. After riling up his adoring crowds that Hillary Clinton had somehow done treasonous things with the famous missing emails, Trump pompously declared that under his administration, classified material would be handled in a very sacred and appropriate way. We now learn that the National Archives has been trying to get materials from Trump’s golf resort, Mar-a- Lago, for nearly 18 months. Trump has no legal right to these materials due to laws passed after the Nixon Watergate scandal.

The Trump team turned over many boxes early in 2022 (a year late as it is). When the National Archives realized that there was much more classified material still at the resort, and poorly secured, they sent a subpoena. A Trump lawyer found a few more boxes in June and turned them over and signed assurances that that was all the documents. But multiple witnesses tipped off the FBI that there was still a lot of classified material there and that the security of these documents was sketchy. Hence the raid of the resort last month…as a last resort (pun intended).

What we saw and what has dribbled out of the news media since then is that there were multiple covers marked classified that were empty and there were thousands of pages of classified material, some with the highest levels of security. There was material that described the defense and nuclear capabilities of a certain unnamed country as well as other documents which were dangerous to our national security or our methods of securing information. This has catastrophic potential.

Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump a week after he lost the election, has granted his request for a “Special Master” to review the documents to ensure that executive privilege (even though Trump is no longer the executive) or attorney client privilege is not violated. Any understanding of how Trump operates would indicate that this is just another stalling tactic. Deny, delay, attack. That is what he learned so well from Roy Cohn, Trump’s mentor in the New York City real estate days, who was at one time the lead counsel for Joseph McCarthy, of all people.

Trump stonewalls everything. With so many investigations going on around Trump, it’s hard to keep track, but in the recent one in New York, Sir Donald pled the 5th Amendment 400 times and Don Jr pled the 5th 500 times.

My question… when is it finally time to hold this scoundrel accountable? He lies with every breath he takes. I am part of the 81 million voters who voted him out of office. We are part of a vanguard of folks who were fed up with his form of tweetocratic ignorance. We agree with Kevin McCarthy who the day after the assault on the Capital said, “I’m through with this guy.” Of course, that was before McCarthy got schooled that he has to toe the line and back Trump and all his MAGA election denial mania, or the Republicans will lose their “base.”

Many of us fear what a resurgence of Trumpism could do to this democracy. I grant you these are unprecedented times and if Trump is indicted, there will no doubt be strong protests, and the right-wing media will go nuts. And they have the ear of many of the 20+ % of Americans who seem to think that violence and death threats are the way to advance their political will if they can’t win at the ballot box.

Make no mistake, if Trump runs in 2024, he will lose by more than the 7 million votes that Biden beat him by in 2020. With all the information about what he did and didn’t do around January 6th, his betrayal of Mike Pence, all his attempts to overturn the results of the Biden election, and all the civil and criminal investigations of him, plus his bungling of the Covid crisis, and his continuous lying, there is plenty of ammo to sink his ship. I say, Bring it!!!

But when is the Justice Department going to bring it? We are waiting. Had it not been for all the enablers in the Republican Party, he would have been banished from public life by now. Yes, it sets a precedent to indict a former president, but these are unprecedented times and Trump represents an outrageous unprecedented challenge to our democracy. LOCK HER UP!!! LOCK HER UP!!! The crowd screamed for jailing Hillary Clinton, egged on by a man who used the Russian hacked emails to convince “his people” that she was evil… not just wrong… evil. Now let me be the first to begin the chant, let it echo from the mountain tops. LOCK HIM UP!!! LOCK HIM UP!!! Once more with feelin’ LOCK HIM UP!!!

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County