Dear President Trump,

One of the more prominent discussion topics swirling around the release of The Report is whether voters’ opinions will be swayed one way or another by it, whether its release will really matter in the end. Most pundits are convinced that we are all so entrenched in our polarized camps that there’s no way the report will result in any meaningful movement regardless of what it says. I’m inclined to agree with them on that count.

If you’ve done nothing else during your excruciatingly copious number of days in office, you have done an A+++ job of rallying your troops around you, of convincing them that you are Greatness personified as well as the innocent, tragic victim of a vicious deep state cabal out to destroy you and all you and the troops value in life. Truly, the consistency of the messaging you and yours have managed these last 28 months has been impressive and it appears to have worked as intended. A frighteningly large proportion of your supporters appear convinced that Russia didn’t influence the 2016 elections and so there was nothing for you all to collude with them on and nothing for you to want to cover-up (as Greg Sargent pointed out this morning – covering-up just Russia’s interference was a primary goal of yours since it detracts terribly from your win and your Greatness).

But whether they can shake off the mind-numbing agents you all constantly use to control them is not the real point around how much of report we get to see; we need a record, which is on the record, of what Russia did and how you and your administration comported yourselves in response. Not only will this allow us to more or less, depending how much is redacted, get a handle on your sins of commission (and attempted commission), but your sins of omission will also be laid bare even if they are not specifically called out (a meta-omission as it were).

Sins of omission are even trickier to prove than their commission sibs, and intent in the context of omission sins is especially slippery, but I think we’ll see plainly that in addition to trying your damnedest to derail the investigation, it is what you didn’t do about Russia’s election interference that is your most treasonous behavior. That’s a long sentence. Let me state it more clearly: In pretending that Russia’s obvious election interference didn’t happen and in failing to address it proactively and aggressively, you have put the United States at ongoing grave risk.

You can claim ignorance. You can claim that you truly believed there was no election interference. You can shrug your shoulders and say “tough cookies, you can’t prove that I should’ve done anything.” And you will. But none of that will change the fact that you and your associates betrayed the United States through both your actions, and your inactions.

May we all be safe from mind-numbing agents.
May we call out both what did happen that should not have, and what didn’t happen that should have.
May we dig deep to stay strong and healthy.
May we have the courage to stay peaceful.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson