Let Trump off the hook — again?
Two tiers of justice
Regarding “Lock Trump up? Better to take the high road,” (June 16): Is Cal Thomas unaware of current fuel prices? Because the amount of gaslighting in this article is going to cost him a fortune. I recall Robert Mueller taking the high road when he refused to indict the president. One day later, Trump tried to extort Ukraine for political dirt, for which he was impeached but not convicted. Hardly chastened, Trump went on to incite an insurrection, for which he was again impeached but not convicted. Kicking the orange can down the road, Mitch McConnell told us that the criminal justice system should be the final forum for justice. Arguably, it is lack of accountability for a man who has never been held accountable — for anything — that got us here in the first place. Now we should let him off the hook again, with so many Republican candidates willing to pick up where he left off ?
As preposterous as this article was, what jumped out at me was Thomas' apparent contention with the idea that nobody is above the law. He says that we have a two-tier justice system: one for Blacks and one for whites, one for the well-connected and one for the disconnected, etc. Curiously, he never finishes that thought. Never suggests that there is something inherently wrong with that or that it should be redressed in any way. I don't know what road he's on, but it's not heading upward.
Robert Campbell, Katy
Cal Thomas asks the president to intervene in the work of the Department of Justice and give the former president a pass on his criminality. Say what?
Just watching how former U.S. Attorney General William Barr compromised whatever honor he might have had should be proof enough to demand that presidents and attorneys general go their own separate ways. The administration of justice should be totally independent of politics.
We may not like every judicial decision, but that's the nature of the law. And we should treasure that independence. Otherwise, the law stands for nothing.
Gene Bruce, Conroe
In his column, Cal Thomas gives his final apologetic on the Trump presidency by lauding Donald Trump's “undeniable” policy successes as a final reason President Joe Biden should pardon him. He overlooks four monumentally fatal policy failures driven by Trump's greed to maintain and extend his power.
The first is his hiding a plague that, two years in, killed more Americans than were lost per capita by any other major nation. Cascading economic results ensued, including the global supply chain disruptions that led in major part to the current surge of inflation despite record employment.
The second “little” failure was Trump's early attack on “political correctness” and other dog whistles encouraging violence, which helped unleash the recurrence of white supremacist hate crimes and states' legislation suppressing the Black vote.
The third is his taking advantage of the divisive abortion issue which is expected to lead his packed Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which — alongside Texas and other states' draconian anti-abortion measures — will likely result in maternal deaths surpassing Texas' already-high rate.
Fourth, he removed the United States from our leadership role among nations organized at the end of World War II to oppose Russia's aggressions, with the arguable effect of opening the door to Russia's present illegal war against Ukraine.
Britt D. Davis, Katy
Cal Thomas is wrong. Anything short of incarceration for Trump and he will claim he was exonerated. At least Nixon admitted he was wrong by resigning. Trump will never admit he was wrong. He will go to his grave claiming the election was stolen and he should still be president.
Patricia Roberts, Bellaire