From Diana Vance

Monroe

To the editor:

President Donald Trump may be working with the Russians according to the FBI. Let’s take a look at some incidents that led up to this investigation of Trump. First there is the firing of Michael Flynn who was President Trump’s National Security Advisor. He later revealed to Robert Mueller that the Trump election campaign had relations with Russian officials.

Then there was the Trump Tower meeting where Donald Trump Jr. said the Russians had “dirt on Hillary Clinton.” Later, Trump called out to Russia in a campaign speech “If they had emails on Hillary Clinton” he would like to see them. How would he know about the “emails” if there had not been a meeting with the Russians?

Then many news reports tell that Donald Trump Jr. had contacts with WikiLeaks which appears to be the chosen means by which Russian hackers distributed damaging documents and emails from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Mueller was very interested in the Trump Organization and its ties to Russia — possibly a Russian bank. Then there was the surprise from President Trump in Helsinki when he said that he did not believe Vladimir Putin and Russia hacked into the 2016 campaign. He said this in spite of the Intelligence committee report that the Russians did hack the 2016 campaign. 

Before that President Trump fired FBI director James Comey which caused the FBI to begin an investigation into Donald Trump’s connection with Russia. Trump said that he believed the FBI and the Justice Department should be on his beck and call, and when that didn’t happen, remember how he attacked the FBI and the Justice Department.

All this formed an attitude that persisted in the threats against Robert Mueller and his investigation that Trump called a “witch hunt” and his threats against Rod Rosenstein. Why did he the bully Andrew McCabe and Jeff Sessions, plus dangle pardons before potential witnesses and make the choice of Mathew Whitaker as acting attorney general? 

President Trump saw no need for America’s allies and insulted them and told them to put more money in the pot. This was in Russia’s interests. Then there were many secret calls to Putin on an unsecured telephone and the famous two hour private meeting of the two at Helsinki where President Trump told the interpreter to give him her notes, which he ripped up.