I really have better things to do than to respond to reader Ed Surgan’s letters to these pages. But his latest missive [“Unequal Treatment,” Letters, February 15] is so full of inaccuracies that I cannot help myself. I will just have to sort my socks on another day.
Writing about the treatment that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have received regarding their mishandling of classified government documents, Mr. Surgan claims that President Trump has been unfairly prosecuted. This would be true if both men had committed the same misdeeds. However, their shortcomings are not in the least comparable.
President Biden’s response when first accused of mishandling secret documents was essentially, “Oops! My bad.” He, like Vice President Mike Pence, who was accused of similar behavior, admitted his errors and agreed to fully cooperate with the subsequent investigation.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand, lied to the employees of the National Archives who attempted to retrieve sensitive material from him for more than a year. And when, as a last resort, the FBI raided his Mar a Lago golf club, he continued lying.
Do you recall, Mr. Surgan, Trump’s initial response that there was no classified material at Mar a Lago? Or his next lie — that the FBI had planted documents at his home? Or his totally false assertion that he had every right as a former president to take home whatever he wished? That authority, which reader Surgan mistakenly claimed in his latest letter, ended the minute Joe Biden was sworn in as president.
Many of the criminal charges Mr. Trump faces in this case have to do with his obstruction of the investigation. Had he been truthful from the start, he might not be heading to trial in this case.
As an aside, I must say that I do not appreciate Mr. Surgan’s repeated use of the phrase “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Mr. Trump is on tape exhorting our enemy Russia to invade one of our NATO allies if they don’t pony up all of their NATO dues. (Memo to Trump fans: NATO nations do not pay dues.) He has called fallen soldiers “losers.” And he has called for the execution of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I don’t think you have to be deranged to oppose such a person.
John Neely
Westhampton Beach
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