Put Up or Shut Up (An Open Letter to President Trump)

Dear President Trump:

You won the electoral college election and, having been duly sworn into office, are the president of the United States of America.

Act like it.

Presidents represent all the people of the United States. They give up their personal right to voice unproven beliefs to the public as though they are facts because their pronouncements now come from the head of the executive branch of government, not from a private citizen.

Illegal Voters

When you claim to have won the popular vote had illegal votes not been counted, you are saying that at least 2.8 million more illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton than were cast for you. This is massive voter fraud. It means more than one in every 24 votes cast for Clinton was illegal. If true, this is a crisis for democracy in the United States. It is much more serious to address this problem than to fix the tax code or repeal and replace Obamacare or even tackle the problem of an insecure border.

Well over a month after you made the claim, we have heard nothing more about the investigation you planned to order. Why is that, President Trump?

Illegal Wiretaps

This past week you tweeted, Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! and How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! If true, this is extremely serious.

Either President Obama has broken the law in a truly frightening way (he’s circumvented the process that requires Justice Department officials to obtain a judge’s permission before allowing them to execute a wiretap, or he’s circumvented the FISA court by not obtaining a legal order to surveil with respect to a foreign entity) or the Federal Government has acted legally (implying someone(s) in Trump Tower, or the Trump Organization, or the Trump Campaign acted in such a way as to justify a court ordering the surveillance).

You must have factual evidence to justify accusing a former president of usurping power from the courts and illegally obtaining information about a presidential candidate and his associates. With such a serious charge about the power of the presidency in a democratic country with supposed checks and balances, it is critical that the public understands exactly what has happened and how we can prevent any future president from committing similar nefarious actions.

The time, President Trump, has come for you to PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

Because you have stated that Administrative leaking is a security issue, and you have tweeted that nothing was found on the wiretaps, I must assume no secret material is involved. Please release the verifiable details of the wiretaps. How were they issued? Who carried them out? What was discovered?

And tell us who is performing the critical inquiry into your claim of voting fraud. What specifically is their charge? When is their report due to the American people?

Regarding any further statements you make:

Please provide the proof prior to or simultaneously with your presentation of the issue you choose to address. In the vernacular of the playground, PUT UP or SHUT UP.

~ Jim