Dear President Trump,

Even though I can’t find an updated number this morning and I’m sure there are more by now, did you see the news (as of last night) that more than 560 Republican and Democratic former federal prosecutors have signed a letter stating they believe there’s ample evidence in the Mueller report to support prosecuting you on charges of obstruction? I know better than to expect it will change anything in the short run, but hearing this certainly boosted my mood.

It’s enlightening, isn’t it, hearing what people are willing to say when they are unencumbered by fear of your wrath, fear of losing voters, and fear of losing financial patrons. Seriously, how is it that Republican former federal prosecutors are willing to sign this thing, have their names affixed to it, when nary a GOP Senator and hardly any GOP House members are willing to stand up to you on anything? This is one of the best demonstrations yet that your White House and your GOP shield is a stinky, gaseous cesspool of craven self-dealers and that anyone with a smidge of decency can see it and is willing to call it out.

As you attempt to face down the implications of the Mueller findings, it looks to me like you have battened down the proverbial hatches so tightly that you probably aren’t even allowing yourself to go to the bathroom for fear someone will catch your crap downstream and try to make something of it. Ok, that’s gross. But not that much more gross than what you are doing with the massive deflect and obstruct campaign you’ve launched to keep the House from exercising its oversight responsibilities (btw, it truly is the responsibility of the House to provide Checks and Balances on the Executive Branch – check it out, it’s in the Cliff notes on the Constitution).

Put another, less pungent way, in the bluster and rhetoric department you all have a full court press going to keep your base in line, but really what you’ve done is you’ve taken the ball off the court and out of the arena by refusing to deliver your tax returns, refusing to allow any current or former administration officials and staffers to testify before the House (again, how are you pulling that off), refusing to deliver the un-redacted report to Congress and on and on. You’ve taken obstruction to previously unimagined depths and because you and Vladimir have worked out how to keep the GOP doing your bidding, you are f*cking getting away with it.

Except that you aren’t – those former prosecutors see through you, as do millions of ordinary citizens. We aren’t just saying to one another and to our Congressional representatives, ‘Oh, isn’t it nice that Trump and Putin can chat on the phone so easily for 90+ minutes? How great that our countries are kissing and making up!’ or ‘Gee, President Trump surely has our best interests at heart, we should just get out of his way and let him do his thing.’ No, we are scared and we are angry and we are not going to let you and whoever is pulling your strings demolish our democracy.

May we make our imperfect, fragile democracy safe.
May we be willing to speak out in its defense and thus, in our own defense.
May we not let the health of our nation be dictated by greedy power-brokers wherever they reside.
May we make peace with the need for sustained resistance.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson