Letters

Reader Ed Surgan writes at length about President Donald Trump’s Justice Department’s case against James Comey, claiming that the former director of the FBI is guilty of treason [“Fomenting Anarchy,” Letters, October 16]. The fact is that the case against Mr. Comey is so weak that no prosecutor would bring it to a grand jury until Trump installed a woman with absolutely zero prosecutorial experience to bring the case forward.

As usual, in his letters, Mr. Surgan never mentions the problems facing most Americans today. These would include unaffordable health care, an unjust tax system, rising prices, and a housing market that puts homeownership out of reach for many Americans. Instead of addressing possible solutions to these issues, Mr. Surgan is fixated on “the violence so prevalent from the self-indulgent left.”

I am old enough to remember when political opponents argued about substantive issues instead of the number of violent acts perpetrated by their opponents. Now, we seem to be engaged in a perpetual game of violence score-keeping.

That being said, Mr. Surgan is 100 percent wrong if he thinks the left is mainly responsible for political violence in America. The right-wing Cato Institute recently published a report on political violence: According to the think tank’s analysis, right-wing violence has accounted for 63 percent of politically motivated deaths, compared to 10 percent for left-wing attacks. I think this whole violence score-keeping thing is depressing — but if you are going to engage in it, at least get the facts right.

On a completely different topic, I would like to speak about President Trump’s stance on crime. His supporters like to depict him as the only person standing between us and criminal chaos. His solution is to put armed soldiers on the streets of America’s cities. Not to fund more police and court personnel. Not to address homelessness and drug and alcohol abuse. Not to improve our schools. But instead to declare a phony emergency and use our military in a way that would have our founding fathers unable to recognize this great country they founded.

To get a real understanding of Trump’s take on crime, just look at his pardons. He pardoned Ross Ulbright, the founder of the dark website Silk Road, which not only traded illicit drugs but also illegal weapons, hacking tools and tutorials. It also offered hit men for hire for thousands of customers.

Trump also pardoned nursing home magnate Philip Esformes, who bilked Medicare out of more than $1 billion. So much of eliminating fraud and abuse.

And, most famously, Trump recently commuted the sentence of George Santos, the poster boy for fraud. Why? Because he was a reliable Republican vote.

John Neely

Westhampton Beach