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Wednesday, December 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
O
N
The Russians won
in 2016
Jim Cornelius
Editor
Letters to the Editor…
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ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
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To the Editor:
I have a suggestion/challenge: School dis-
trict officials should arrange to have the site
and footprint of the proposed bus barn flagged,
and then invite the community (taxpayers) to
come out and see for themselves what is being
considered.
Patrick Eckford
s
s
s
To the Editor:
Bonnie Malone’s letter on November 29
could have been written by a number of people
in Sisters who frequent the library and always
looked forward to finding Charlotte Nichter
present.
What a loss to the library and the commu-
nity. Having an employee loyal for over two
decades to a job she carried out well is hard
to come by and should be celebrated instead
of dismissed. Even if her limitations kept her
from doing 100 percent of what she used to
do, continuing her on as an employee would
have been the right thing to do.
Edie Jones
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I totally agree with Bonnie Malone’s letter
regarding Charlotte Nitcher and am very dis-
appointed in the Deschutes Library Board in
their unanimous vote to “fire” Charlotte. Am
especially disappointed in the Board member
who is also on the Friends of Sisters Library
and my neighbor.
Sue Edgerton
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I did not realize that Charlotte Nitcher had
See LETTERS on page 31
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General Michael Flynn’s
guilty plea for lying to
the FBI about contacts
with Russian ambassador
Sergey Kislyak is a major
step forward in an investi-
gation that will lead to the
impeachment of President
Donald Trump.
Or it’s not. In fact, it’s a
sign that Robert Mueller’s
investigation is running out
of steam.
The rampant specula-
tion as to what Flynn’s plea
means or doesn’t mean in
the ongoing “Russia inves-
tigation” is a perfect reflec-
tion of the tribalism that
afflicts American culture
and politics at the end of
2017 — a tribalism that is
easy for our adversaries in
the world to exploit.
Those who ardently wish
to see the end of what they
consider a dangerous and
illegitimate presidency can
hardly contain their excite-
ment at each step — no
matter how small or opaque
in its significance — in an
investigative process they
hope will bring Trump
down.
Those who defend
Trump — despite his
team’s obvious obfusca-
tions over Russia — insist
that there’s really nothing to
see here, that the nature of
the charges against Flynn,
Paul Manafort and George
Papadopoulos actually
“prove that there was no
collusion.”
The question of collu-
sion is itself misleading;
it’s being used as a kind
of shorthand for possible
criminal activity. But col-
lusion itself is not a crime.
It is possible that there
was cooperation between
the Trump campaign and
Russia. It is possible that
that cooperation violated
specific statutes, such as
election laws. We don’t
know. Mueller may find
such criminal action; he
may not.
We k n o w t h a t t h e
charges against Manafort
are for money laundering,
not for collusion-related
crimes. Papadopoulos and
Flynn have pleaded guilty
to lying to the FBI.
We also know that the
Trump team’s repeated
assertions that nobody in
the campaign had contacts
with Russia are not true.
We don’t know what might
amount to collusion and if
there was collusion whether
specific actions broke spe-
cific laws. Presumably,
we’ll find out, eventually.
It may be that if Trump
goes down in this farcical
scandal, it will be at his
own hand — or, rather, his
Twitter finger. On Saturday,
he tweeted: “I had to fire
General Flynn because he
lied to the Vice President
and the FBI. He has pled
guilty to those lies. It is a
shame because his actions
during the transition were
lawful. There was nothing
to hide!”
The tweet implies that
Trump knew that Flynn had
lied to the FBI before he
fired FBI Director James
Comey — which could
amount to obstruction of
justice. The White House
obviously is aware that the
tweet puts Trump’s tail in a
crack, which is why they’re
going with “the lawyer
tweeted it.”
The blame-the-dog ploy?
Really?
At this point, the only
absolute certainty is that the
Russia investigation will
further divide Americans
and deepen the cultural and
political rifts that were so
apparent in the 2016 elec-
tion. And that will suit the
Russians and Vladimir
Putin to a T.
Experienced Kremlin-
watchers believe that Putin
wasn’t so much focused
on a certain outcome in
the presidential election as
he was on sowing chaos,
undermining Americans’
confidence in our institu-
tions, and bloodying the
nose of Hillary Clinton.
The operation succeeded
beyond all possible expec-
tations — and the ongo-
ing fallout is a gift to the
Russians that will keep on
giving, way past the holi-
day season. Which makes
Vladimir Putin the sole
winner of the 2016 election.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.