Letters to the editor

Published 9:32 am Tuesday, May 20, 2025

My letter about Trump conviction was not wrong

In response to Al Phillips’ letter dated May 6, 2025, I hope he was not referring to my letter of September 25, 2024, when he said, “Much like his past use of Trump being a ‘convicted rapist.’” My statement in my letter said “found ‘guilty’ of rape and libel.”

A.P., I suggest you investigate the civil case of E. Jean Carrol v. Donald J. Trump. The event in the suit occurred approximately 30 years prior to the case and thus was beyond the statute of limitations for a criminal rape case.

A jury verdict in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages. In July 2023, Judge Kaplan said that the verdict found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word. In August 2023, Kaplan dismissed a countersuit and wrote that Carroll’s accusation of rape is “substantially true.”

In September 2023, Kaplan issued a partial summary judgment regarding Carroll, finding Trump liable for defamation via his 2019 statements. The jury verdict from the January 2024 trial was $83.3 million in additional damages.

So A.P., using Judge Kaplan’s learned opinion, I stand by my statement that Trump was “found ‘guilty’ of rape and libel.” It was not a criminal conviction. A reminder: Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. I consider that “lying.” So, as I have contended all along, people can BELIEVE whatever they want and if they want to believe a convicted liar, they will believe anything.

Walt Bolton, Prineville

Trump Administration is reducing excess government spending

Trump’s first 100 days has highlighted the best and the worst of politics in our country. The best is that the daily tsunami of illegal immigrants entering the U S under Biden’s watch is now down to a trickle. The worst is the exposure of Biden’s declining cognitive abilities and the level of waste and fraud discovered by DOGE.

The economy is taking a hit, which is unsurprising in this observer’s opinion. Biden’s economy was rosy, in large part because of stimulus money and borrowing to pay for programs passed by Congress. The problem is that our national debt is approaching crisis level. Trump campaigned on cutting spending and leveling the international trading field. Tariffs are the way he’s solving the trade issues. The turmoil it’s created has temporarily impacted the stock market. DOGE is identifying where spending can be cut. Trump’s new budget also identifies cuts.

DOGE’s deep diving into the actions and policies of government agencies has produced hard-to-believe results, exposing where our money has gone, to whom and in some cases disappearing entirely. DOGE has also exposed the level of Ivy League thinking that has infiltrated agencies – thinking resulting from Ivy league sociology curriculum typically dominated by a 10 to 1 ratio of liberal-minded professors to conservative minded professors; sociology education without the benefit of equal exposure. The results are predictable and identifiable as DOGE has shown. NPR and PBS are facing funding cuts.

The vitriol aimed at Trump is unprecedented – liberals and others throwing F-bombs around as if they are useful, pointed questions fired at Trump that would never be considered much less asked with previous administrations. During ABC’s recent Terry Moran’s interview, Moran asked Trump “if he trusted Putin?” Trump answered, “I don’t trust you.”

Trump is at war with the Judicial Branch over his deporting activities. Clinton, Bush and Obama all deported millions. Typically, they were not challenged. Trump is challenged daily. Perhaps rightly, so overreach should be challenged. Recent facts disclose also that the Judicial Branch itself is not without overreach as one judge has been arrested for assisting an illegal immigrant avoid ICE detention. Impeding the Executive Branch is illegal.

As I write this, it has been announced that the U.S. has brokered an immediate ceasefire between India and Pakistan. It’s a clear example of the expertise of Vice President Vance and Sec. of State Rubio and that of the influence the U.S. now commands worldwide. Progress, albeit slow and frustrating on other conflicts and world security problems, appears to be making headway.

Closer to home, have you noticed the increase in log trucks on Oregon’s highways? Renewable forests are being harvested as well as salvage logging on thousands of burnt off forest acres. We’ll see similar common-sense activities in the future.

The Rachel Maydows of our country will continue to rely on innuendo and sarcasm to attract audiences and slam Trump. That influence is easily identifiable at times on this page.

Al Phillips, Prineville

Trump is violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution states: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

What exactly does that mean? It’s intended to prevent federal officials – including the President – from accepting gifts, payments or other benefits (emoluments) from foreign governments without the approval of Congress. The purpose is to avoid foreign influence over U.S. officials.

Our President says he intends to accept a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar to be made into Air Force One, with the stipulation that he gets to keep it for personal use after his term in office. That means he’ll be using our tax dollars for this conversion, then keeping those tax dollars for himself after the fact. I wonder what sparked this generous gift from the royal family that rules this desert nation? One has to wonder what they will expect in return for this generosity. Accepting this jet is exactly what the Emoluments Clause intends to prevent.

At a time when Trump is telling the public that children may have to only get “two dolls instead of 30” at Christmas, that we the people will have to endure a “little pain” in this time of unnecessary tariffs, his corruption and greed are on full display.

I sincerely doubt that Trump supporters voted for him thinking it will be fine if he enriches himself while in office. What I’ve been told is that most expected our economy to get better, for grocery prices to go down and quality of life for the middle class to improve. Have any of these things happened?

David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker, recently wrote of Trump’s performance in office, saying “the record of failure after a hundred days is, at once, astonishing and predictable. For no clear purposes, Trump has destabilized the global economy, alienated allies, laid waste to vital government agencies, deported hundreds of people (nearly all of whom have no criminal record) to a Salvadoran gulag and waged a war of intimidation against dozens of scholarly, commercial and legal institutions. This is not primarily a matter of competence or a clash over policy but a coordinated assault on the country’s first principles.”

I agree.

Priscilla Smith, Prineville