Dear America,

The week of March 26 was eventful to remember in our nation’s history. The U.S. dollar’s status as the world reserve currency continues to diminish as BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) continue to make strides in shifting away from the need for the U.S. dollar. Just last week, we heard that China and Brazil have agreed to reach a deal to trade in their own currencies, and China completed its first-ever LNG (liquified Natural Gas) trade in Yuan – the nation’s currency – with the United Arab Emirates.

Also, there was another school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. I won’t dive deep into the subject in this letter since it deserves its own letter. Unfortunately, our once great country is experiencing a horrible mental illness crisis that we have continued to ignore and perhaps even helped create.

Then, on March 30, 2023, a significant moment occurred in our nation’s history. For the first time in our nation's 200+ years, a former President was indicted on criminal charges. The Manhattan grand jury indicted former 45th President Donald J. Trump over his use of hush money payments he allegedly made to a porn star before the 2016 elections. On April 4, 2023, Donald Trump arrived in NYC to surrender and hand himself over to District Attorney Alvin Bragg – a historical scene in our nation’s history.

I’m not here to advocate that any president or elected official is above the law, and I believe that more should be done to catch those abusing power during their time in office. I strongly believe that no one is above the law. In fact, like many Americans, I’ve heard President Trump's name linked to all sorts of allegations and scandals over the past six years, such as the Russia Collusion, Ukraine bribery, Tax fraud, the Georgia Call, and his involvement with the January 6 protests. And like many Americans, at first, I was shocked and slightly embarrassed that our country had elected someone like President Trump – a man that, from what I was being led to believe, was destroying the very foundation of our democracy. However, with time, we soon discovered that some of these scandals and controversies were proven to be either false or misleading to the public. I’m not saying Donald Trump is entirely free of wrongdoing, as I will point out later. However, I believe no previous President has ever been targeted like Donald Trump.

Let’s look at some of Trump's most significant allegations and scandals:

• Russia Collusion: Allegation of interference in the 2016 United States elections, links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials, and possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates. The allegations are brought to light by the Steele dossier – a political opposition research report written from June to December 2016.

• Ukraine Bribery: Allegation of Trump of committing “bribery” by seeking to use U.S. military aid as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government to conduct investigations that could politically benefit the president.

• Tax Fraud: Falsification of Tax Records & Business Fraud.

• Trump–Georgia phone call: U.S. President Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “Find the fraud” and change the state's election results from the 2020 presidential election.

• January 6 Protests: Trump incites supporters to attack the Capital.

Now let’s look at each of these and what the current facts tell us:

• Russia Collusion: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation did not find sufficient evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the United States 2016 election and did not take a clear position on whether Trump obstructed justice. It was later found that the Steele dossier, which was flawed and largely unverified, was funded by the Hilary Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The Federal Election Commission fined both for falsifying how they spent the money (Cohen, 2022).

• Ukraine Bribery: President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly gone on record denying that President Trump pressured him to do anything. “There was no blackmail. This was not the subject of our conversation” (Law, 2020). Let’s say, for whatever reason, President Zelensky is not telling us the truth, according to the Government Accountability Office, withholding military aid violated the Impoundment Act of 1974, prohibiting a President’s ability to withhold money appropriated by Congress without legislative approval. However, this is not a criminal act (Beavers and Kar, 2020).

• Tax Fraud: Democratic officials released Donald Trump’s tax returns to the public. The tax returns showed that Trump paid $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017, and he paid no income taxes for 10 of the last 15 years. While it may seem outrageous that a billionaire paid barely income taxes, the truth remains that Trump legally utilized the tax code to his advantage. It’s a tactic that I can assure you all wealthy people do.

• Georgia Call: The Washington Post admitted they had misquoted Donald Trump’s call with top Georgia election investigators. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her she had ‘the most important job in the country right now” (Mastrangelo, 2021). However, with Raffensperger, the call seems to suggest a possibility of a case for election interference based on the context of Trump's words.

• January 6 Protests: I will just focus on Trump’s role and not comment on the actual protest itself, which is a topic for another time. The idea that Donald Trump incited violence is far-fetched and misleading. The mainstream media omitted the part where Donald Trump tells supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” regarding the capitol hill protests (Naylor, 2021). Trump even told his supporters to “go home” after a certain point during the protests. Jacob Chansley, or the "QAnon Shaman,” relayed this message, which was hidden from the public for over two years (Rondeau, 2023).

Now we’re back to the Stormy Daniels incident – a case developing for the past four years. It has been reported that President Donald Trump is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the indictment handed down by a Manhattan grand jury over an alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. This is the same case that Federal Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Donald Trump, even as Michael Cohen, a former Trump Attorney, implicated him in part of the plea deal back in 2019. Additionally, in 2021, the Federal Election Commission chose not to pursue this case any longer. How can we also forget that back in 2018, Michael Cohen & Stephen Ryan (Lawyer for Michael Cohen) admitted that the payment ($130,000) was facilitated using Michael Cohen's personal funds? The letter states, “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump Campaign was a party to this transaction with Ms. Clifford (Stormy Daniels), and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly” (Moorhead, 2023).

Unfortunately, how can we not interpret the prosecutors' actions in the Manhattan district’s attorney's office as anything other than political? Manhattan District Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James have run their whole Democrat campaigns on "Get Trump." On top of that, Alvin Bragg is known for his soft-on-crime approach to the City of New York. This is the same man who, on his first day, issued a memo saying that he would not prosecute a list of crimes — including prostitution, trespassing, resisting arrest, and most misdemeanors — in the interest of "safety and fairness" while noting racial disparities in incarceration (Bond, 2023). Yet now, after Alan Brag’s history of being soft on actual criminals, now he wants to take Trump’s misdemeanor and turn it into a felony? If anything, the Democrats and political establishment should focus on the Georgia Call allegation because that is a potential case. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about a potential indictment on this case soon, which will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Yet the issue remains that as our country continues its rapid decline and other countries grow stronger, the pollical establishment has again chosen to prioritize its path against Donald. J Trump – as it has done for the past six years - rather than focus on our country's impending and catastrophic issues. No matter where you stand with your political beliefs, what we witnessed on March 30, 2023, has opened a box that could potentially ruin the very foundation of our democracy. The politicization of our justice system to go after political opponents is a tactic that is only done in third-world countries, communist countries, and dictatorships; now, it’s happening in America. Perhaps we need to go back and re-study the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Mao to understand what we’re witnessing in this country. We’ve always used the excuse of “It would never happen in America” to dismiss the possibility of seeing these totalitarian tactics in our country. Yet, in just a couple of years, we have seen the politicization of the FBI, the IRS, and now our justice system being used against those considered political opponents.

Unfortunately, we are at the point of no return as a country. America, I hope I’m wrong when I say this, but I’m afraid to say that it might be too late to change the course of where we are heading. For those expecting one man to come and save our country, I advise you to place that faith in yourself instead. We can’t expect one man or woman - the next president - to save our country. America was initially formed to be governed by the power of the people, and we’ve seem to forget that. The clock is ticking America, and it’s up to us to decide if America is worth fighting for still.

Signed,

G.S.P.

Works Cited

Beavers, Olivia Beavers, and Rebecca Kar. “GAO Finds Trump Administration Broke Law by Withholding Ukraine Aid.” The Hill, 16 Jan. 2020, thehill.com/homenews/administration/478557-gao-finds-trump-administration-broke-law-by-withholding-aid-from/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2023.

Bond, Paul. “Alvin Bragg’s “Soft on Crime” Policies Face Scrutiny as He Goes after Trump.” Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2023, www.newsweek.com/alvin-braggs-soft-crime-policies-face-scrutiny-manhattan-da-goes-after-trump-1789040. Accessed 5 Apr. 2023.

Cohen, Marshall. “FEC Fines Hillary Clinton Campaign and DNC over Trump-Russia Dossier Research | CNN Politics.” CNN, 30 Mar. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-dossier-fusion-gps/index.html.

Law, Tara. “Ukrainian President Denies President Trump Pressured Him.” Time, 25 Sept. 2019, time.com/5686305/zelensky-ukraine-denies-trump-pressure/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2023.

Mastrangelo, Dominick. “Washington Post Adds Lengthy Correction to Report on Trump Call with Georgia Elections Investigator.” The Hill, 15 Mar. 2021, thehill.com/homenews/media/543271-wapost-adds-lengthy-correction-to-story-on-trump-georgia-call/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2023.

Moorhead, Richard. “Bombshell Breaking Report: Letter from Michael Cohen Could Cripple Case against Donald Trump, Critics Cry Foul.” The Western Journal, 22 Mar. 2023, www.westernjournal.com/bombshell-breaking-report-letter-michael-cohen-cripple-case-donald-trump/. Accessed 5 Apr. 2023.

Naylor, Brian. “Read Trump’s Jan. 6 Speech, a Key Part of Impeachment Trial.” NPR, 10 Feb. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial.

Rondeau, Olivia. “Jan 6 Footage Shows “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley Urging Protestors to Leave Capitol after Trump Tweet to “Go Home.”” The Post Millennial, 10 Mar. 2023, thepostmillennial.com/jan-6-footage-shows-qanon-shaman-jacob-chansley-urging-protestors-to-leave-capitol-after-trump-tweet-to-go-home. Accessed 4 Apr. 2023.