Editor, Manteca Bulletin.

Since the election of Donald Trump as president, Democrats have been trying to set the narrative that the Trump team colluded with the Russians to influence the election. The Democrats demanded a Special Counsel to look into these allegations to keep the narrative running and to place a dark cloud over Trump and the Republicans in their effort to persuade public opinion in order to win back Congress, the U.S. Senate, and ultimately the White House. 

So far there has been no evidence of any ties between the Trump team and the Russians. James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has stated on May 12, 2017 that the NSA, FBI, CIA, and his office “had no evidence of such collusion.” Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein (CA), who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, stated that she hasn’t seen any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. 

While the Special Council seems like a “Witch Hunt” by Democrats delegitimize the Trump presidency, this is actually good for Trump. It puts the issue to rest and I suspect the result of the investigation will show there was no collusion, which is bad news for Democrats.

Trump and the Republicans should be calling for several other Special Counsels to investigate other criminal activity within the government including the illegal electronic surveillance by those in the Obama administration on the Trump team and those leaking such intelligence to the media. Several felonies were committed when individuals within the National Security Council, whom over sixty percent were appointed by Obama, illegally unmasked individuals within the Trump team violating their legal protection under privacy as American citizens and anonymously leaked those classified reports collected through a FISA warrant to the media. The media has used the private conversations between Russian Ambassadors as examples of collusion even though such conversations with ambassadors of various countries are normal. Feinstein admitted, “There are all kind of rumors around. There are newspaper stories, but that is not necessarily evidence.”

We should welcome Special Counsel to investigate collusion between Hillary Clinton and the Russians for selling 20% of American uranium to the Russians for the millions donated to the Clinton Foundation as well as the hundreds of thousands Bill Clinton received from the Russians in speaking fees.  

We should have a Special Counsel for the $500,000 donated by the Clintons to Jill McCabe, who was running for the State Senate and is the wife of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who was the official in charge of investigating the emails of Hillary’s private server. Can we say unethical and conflict of interest?

We should have a Special Counsel for Hillary’s private server with the 33,000 email and classified material leaked along with the private meeting of Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an Arizona airport. More conflict of interest.

We should have a Special Counsel for the murder of Seth Rich, who was the DNC leaker to Wikileaks. 

We should have a Special Counsel for lies and cover-up of the murders in Benghazi. We should have a Special Counsel for the IRS scandal of targeting conservative organizations with the cover-up of destroying the email servers. We should have a Special Counsel for President Obama’s surveillance of Republican presidential candidates including Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. We should have a Special Counsel for the deaths of Veterans at the VA hospital during the Obama administration. We should have a Special Counsel for the deception of the Iran deal and the billions given to them from Obama. We should have a Special Counsel for Fast and Furious when the Obama administration sold weapons to the Mexican drug cartels that were used to kill two border patrol agents. 

Special Counsels are good and there should be a lot of government people held responsible, including jail.  While the Special Counsel against Trump smells of a “Witch Hunt” based on trumped up information, this will put the issue to rest; but at the same time, other Special Counsels against the real criminals in Washington is another way to “Drain the Swamp.”

Frank Aquila 

Manteca