With apologies, some FreidomReport readers may already have read one or both of these letters. For other readers, I’m happy to share them with you now.
Los Angeles Times, Aug. 3
After the 1972 Watergate break-in occurred, it took more than a year for investigators and the public to understand what Richard Nixon and his top aides had been plotting in the Oval Office. Because Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, many were relieved that a constitutional crisis had been averted.
Now that Donald Trump has been indicted on various crimes — including an effort to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and, thus, rob Americans of their right to vote — it feels to me like I’m in a speeding car heading directly into a concrete wall. It is with a heavy heart that I say we aren’t simply facing a constitutional crisis, we already are experiencing one.
Hyperbole aside, the former president is now, in my opinion, at the center of the greatest crime ever committed against the nation. I know Trump is innocent until proven guilty. I also know that once his trial begins, there is no way to know what the jurors will decide. My hope is they will carefully consider the facts as they are presented.
The future of democracy is at stake. Will this be the first step toward putting a pin in our current constitutional crisis?
Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach
Orange County Register, July 30
Re "Giuliani admits he lied about election workers in Georgia," July 27
Hope springs eternal, and mine is New York's former mayor and his special client eventually come to the same conclusion: Namely, their cooked up, unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen were as bogus as a $3 bill. Not for nuthin', but what's next from Mr. Giuliani and you know who? That they have proof slavery wasn't so bad or that the Holocaust never happened? To paraphrase what former White House counsel, John Dean, told then-President Nixon during the Watergate investigation, Rudy and his friend are like cancers on our great American experiment. My other hope is the courts deal with them appropriately.
Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach