Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Once again Frank Aquila has emerged from his apparent hermetically sealed political bubble to inform us that “up” is “down” and “down” is “up”. (“Russian meddling: Obama smokescreen?”, March 23) . Let’s examine the putrid gas molecules Aquila has allowed to escape from that bubble into the political atmosphere, shall we?
1. Democrats creating an impression of Russian meddling in the 2016 election... Sorry, the FBI and the Justice Department has already stated the Russians did just that and that investigation is still ongoing.
2. Democrats speculated on Trump’s businesses, taxes and Trump colluding with the Russians without evidence. True, so is everyone else including the FBI who apparently does have evidence and has stated they are investigating the collusion charges as we speak. Dems speculated that “Voting machines hacked as well as Clinton campaign” Nobody has charged that voting machines were hacked, nobody! The FBI Director did state that the Russians did hack the DNC campaign, that is a fact and an FBI investigation is ongoing. As far as taxes, much could be cleared if Trump would release his taxes, which he refuses to do. Why do you think he refuses to do what every other President since Nixon has done without fail?? Take this little tidbit Aquila missed: Trump’s purchase of a Florida mansion for $40 million, making no improvements, then immediately selling it to a Russian Oligarch with close ties to Putin for $100 million putting a cool immediate profit of $60 million in Trump’s pocket. That mansion was never lived in and has actually since been demolished. Now we have all been told that Trump is a great real estate mogul, but can anybody really believe that was on the up and up?
  3. Aquila does his own speculating on the death of an alleged “Wikileaks leaker”, hinting that the hit was ordered by the Clintons. Really Frank, really?
4. Aquila repeats the tired old campaign claims about uranium sold to Russia and Russian payments to the Clinton Foundation of course without a shred of proof, right? That Clinton met with the Russian ambassador. As Secretary of State, I suppose she did but Aquila fails to mention the many meetings with the Russian ambassador by Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort  and others from the Trump Campaign including Rex Tillerson, who by the way received the Russian Medal of Freedom (The highest honor awarded to a non-citizen) by Valdimir Putin himself. Another rather hilarious statement was that of Hillary’s approval rating of 20% as a candidate but fails to mention Trump’s current approval rate of 27%, the lowest of any sitting President, ever!
5. Aquila mentions in passing, as if it was no big deal, that Mike Flynn resigned (as National Security Advisor), actually Trump said he fired Flynn because he lied to Mike Pence about talking to the Russians about sanctions imposed by Obama for Russia’s meddling in the elections. It is interesting to note that this action didn’t happen until over three weeks had passed since Sally Yates, acting AG, informed Trump of Flynn’s indiscretions. So what did Trump do when Yates brought that news to his attention? He immediately fired her! Meanwhile Flynn, with now known Russian ties, had access to all the daily security briefings to Trump for close to a month. That doesn’t bother you?
 6. Aquila doubles up on Trump’s crazy early morning tweets charging that Obama, a “bad or sick guy” wiretapped his phones. The FBI and Justice Department have already stated (In front of the Senate Intelligence committee) that these allegations had no basis for truth (Lies). They also stated that no president can direct wiretapping surveillance on any American individual. In that same paragraph, he mentions an “alleged” link between Trump and two Russian banks. Actually the banks in question are a German bank, Deutsche Bank, to whom Trump owes over $300 million and which has been fined for money laundering Russian monies. The other bank is the Alfa Bank of Italy, also controlled by the Russians and holder of serous Trump notes.
7. Aquila also doubles down on Trump’s assertions that Obama used GCHQ, the British spying agency to monitor Trump. The British agency quickly knocked that claim down and demanded that Trump not continue on that course. Since then the Trump Administration has remained silent on that false assertion. Of course Aquila claims the British confirmed that they assisted Obama. None of what Aquila stated is anywhere near fact and easily verified.
8. Aquila ends his with a note about Congressman Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee taking it upon himself to take classified information he claimed only he received, inexplicably information Trump couldn’t get from his own security team,  that provided cloud cover about the Trump ridiculous tweets blaming Obama for wiretaps on Trump, doing this before informing the very committee he is chairing. Of course it did nothing to clear the Trump nonsense and actually raised concerns about the credibility of their on-going investigation throughout the Congress, including Sen. John McCain who is now calling for an independent investigation, saying the Committee has lost all credibility and cannot continue its investigation.
It is rather ironic that after trying in vain to connect every Democrat who ever ran for President with George Soros, Aquila’s favorite pinko commie, he now has to contend with a sitting President who is being investigated for Treason in his Administrations collusion with a foreign State, Russia itself. I would find that hilarious if it wasn’t so serious for this country’s Democratic stability. Do you remember when Hillary’s Emails were being investigated by the FBI and Trump said over and over again that someone who is being investigated by the FBI cannot be president? What say you now comrade?

Larry Baca
Manteca