Readers Write: The Trump verdict

Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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We did not need another reason to believe that our country will be better off when U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips is a private citizen rather than an elected official helping to shape national policy. But he has given us one anyway.

Polite words are inadequate to describe how wrongheaded and catastrophic Phillips’ suggestion to pardon Donald Trump for his crimes is. It would not heal the country. It would be a punch in the face for all the women whom Trump has assaulted and debased and defamed over the years. It would be a punch in the face for every judge and public lawyer and juror who has put their safety, and possibly that of their families, at risk in the effort to hold Trump accountable for his outrageous and illegal behavior.

If Trump is pardoned, he will immediately declare victory and continue to do everything he can to bring our form of government down. His followers will similarly see this as proof that Trump is the untouchable leader they want to take over the country.

It would send a message to all the ethically challenged and/or spineless elected officials (e.g., Sens. Mitch McConnell and Mike Johnson, Nikki Haley and Reps. Tom Emmer and Pete Stauber) who have sold their souls to this man and are willing to let our form of government die at his hands in the service of their ideology that such behavior will be rewarded.

It would send a message to every American and around the world that our nation has a two-tiered system of justice, in which catalytic converter thieves go to prison but uber-wealthy members of the economic aristocracy can do whatever they want and not be touched.

I wish Phillips well in retirement, as soon as possible.

Jeremy Lane, Minneapolis

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Trump as a convicted felon cannot own a gun, yet as a potential president he may well have his trigger finger on a nuclear weapon. God save us from this crazy situation.

Sheldon Ajax, Oak Park Heights

As the Democratic Party remakes America into a banana republic that pursues political prosecutions with a manipulated and fabricated application of the justice system, it should keep in mind that it will be the biggest losers in the end.

Trump will likely be the next president of the United States. These so-called “convictions” will neither stop him nor survive appeals or pardons. And many years from now, long after the dust settles from this dark chapter in American history, those with no ties to this generation and no ax to grind will see this fraud for the political prosecution that it was.

History will not be kind to this Democratic Party nor its many conspirators. Trump’s name will be respected as that of a street fighter and of a successful entrepreneur who fought the righteous battle against tyranny and corruption.

It will be the long list of Democratic operatives whose names will be disgraced and tarnished in the history books of tomorrow. It will be their descendants whose names will be forever shamed in the annals of history.

Corby Pelto, Minneapolis

One of the things we learned from the recent Trump criminal trial is that Trump is “cheap.” Stormy Daniels had a politically damaging story about a sexual tryst with him, and he was only willing to pay $130,000 to keep her quiet? Trump always wants to come out ahead on any deal he makes, but, come on, couldn’t he cough up a quarter of a million? Or were there simply too many women to be paid off, such that payouts of that magnitude would have mounted egregiously?

Trump never took the stand in his own defense, so we are left to hypothesize as to why. I suspect it’s because he is so unfamiliar with being truthful that he really didn’t think he could do it. He probably feared being caught in a lie, and then adding perjury to his list of crimes.

The person whose story we have not heard, though probably will eventually in her own “tell all” book, is that of Melania Trump. But her absence at the trial (and that of daughter Ivanka) has already spoken volumes.

Lisa Wersal, Vadnais Heights

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David Wiljamaa, Minneapolis

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Voting for values? The theme put forth by a recent opinion writer (”Even a poor candidate can make a good president,” Opinion Exchange, May 29) and subsequent letter writers, that even if their party’s leader and prospective president is a flawed individual, they will vote for him because ... then, not just undercutting their own argument, they completely destroy its credibility by claiming they are voting for the party’s values. Values! Really? In 2016 they may have gotten away with the notion that only Trump held a series of poor, frankly un-American values, but their party’s were different. They cannot say that in 2024. So if they are planning to vote for those values plainly and constantly documented for eight years (not just by Trump but by many GOP “leaders” who previously pointed out his massive character flaws but now lick his boots when called to), they will be voting for lying, dictator methods, hate for most immigrants, self-pity and public whining, a weak free press, abandoning morality to retain political power and promoting hate for half of America. They cannot use the terms honesty, unity, fairness or rule of law, and certainly not integrity. I note these writers were aware enough to use neither of the once-common adjectives seen ahead of “values”: “family” or “American.”

David Paulson, Minnetonka

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Lynn Strauss, Minneapolis

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I didn’t do it. He did it. I’ve done nothing wrong. The system is rigged. The judge is crooked. The jury got it wrong. They’re only out to get me. It’s a witch hunt. It’s his fault. The whole process is unfair. It’s all politically motivated. They’re all liars. The dog ate my homework.

Enough! The chickens are coming home to roost for the most dishonest president in history and, true to form, he’s not showing he has anything near the mental fortitude, character or guts to admit the truth and take responsibility for his actions. He still plays the blame-everyone-else game that has been his go-to play all his life. He is a pitiable, immature man never able to take responsibility for his misdeeds. And this is the man who will receive the nomination for president from the Republican Party? Get real.

He’s now a felon. I can only hope he will have ample time alone in a room by himself to turn over a new leaf but am not optimistic either will happen.