Republican remarks seem treasonous
I was very disappointed to read the remarks of our elected representatives about the indictment of the former president. You may recall what Liz Cheney said at the beginning of the Jan. 6 committee hearings, “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
We are well aware of the fact that there are people in Tennessee who believe violence against the federal government is justified. You saw them on Jan. 6.
To suggest that this indictment by the DOJ is part of an “unprecedented vendetta” against Donald Trump, or representative of “a two-tiered system of justice” will only fan the flames of a smoldering fire. These remarks further erode confidence in our government and delegitimize the Justice Department.
A member of Congress has a moral and a legal responsibility to uphold the rule of law. These remarks are treasonous. The indictment presents ample evidence that crimes were committed. Donald Trump is entitled to a vigorous defense, and a jury will eventually decide whether Trump is guilty. It would be prudent to withhold comment until a verdict is returned.
Jim Milburn
Lookout Mountain
Weary of whiny ‘weaponization’
On Jan. 23, 2016, candidate Donald Trump bragged to an Iowa campaign audience that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Seven years later, ex-President Donald Trump can now boast that he can steal top secret and other classified documents which are the property of the United States government, hide them when authorities try to recover same, and lie about having returned all of them, and still not lose the support of spineless Republican “leadership,” including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott.
How many intelligence and military personnel might have been exposed by Trump’s reckless and arrogant behavior? How gravely might the security of our country been jeopardized?
I am already weary of hearing Republicans whine about the “weaponization” of the Justice Department. It sickens me that their party once claimed to be the party of “law and order” and champion of the proposition that “character matters.”
If Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden are guilty of comparable crimes (they’re not), any of Trump’s attorneys general could have indicted them as well. But they didn’t. Mostly, it sickens me that I once considered myself a Republican.
Dave Siklosi
Athens, Tenn.
Republicans loyal only to Trump
I was appalled to read some of the local Republican federal officeholders’ responses to the news of Donald Trump’s indictment. Sen. Marsha Blackburn accused the FBI of an “unprecedented vendetta” and claimed that a few years ago it would have been “unthinkable” for the attorney general to approve an FBI raid on the home of a former president. She’s actually right about that part: Until Donald Trump’s time, it would have been unthinkable for a former president to claim hundreds of box loads of classified documents as his own property.
Then there were the usual blatherings from Reps. Chuck Fleischmann and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who made their ignorance of history, law and the Constitution obvious — again.
These Republican politicians — and too many others to list — have made it clear that they are not patriots. They are Trumpists, loyal only to the bidding of a criminal narcissist. We need to replace them with actual Americans loyal to the Constitution.
David Cofield
LaFayette, Ga.