To the editor:

A federal jury totally debunked the claim that, following a three-year investigation by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed in 2019 by then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr upon the urging of then-President Donald J. Trump, in order to prove that the FBI investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was somehow a criminal plot, and that the FBI had illegally investigated Trump and members of his presidential campaign against his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, incredibly, in less than six hours.

This, after months of former President Trump and his sychophants in Congress and in the media endlessly villainizing Clinton’s attorney Michael Sussman, Clinton and her campaign.

Talk about a frivolous witch hunt, a term Trump is so apt to bandy about when he and his associates are legitimately accused of possible wrong doing.

This in comparison to the investigation led by Robert Mueller on then-President Trump and the Trump campaign regarding their involvement with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which was won by Trump, which actually took less time to complete then did the Durham investigation, and has been endlessly referred to by Trump and his loyalists as a witch hunt, actually proved that e-mails of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Committee and the Clinton campaign were hacked endlessly by the Russians in their support of their candidate Trump.

In addition, as a result seven of Trump’s advisers were criminally prosecuted, along with National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Foreign Policy Adviser George Papadopolous, Trump adviser Roger Stone and chief political strategist Steve Bannon, who all were pardoned by Trump before he left the White House.

It appears, sadly, that certain heinous federal crimes went unpunished when such were committed to assist then-President Trump.

Incredibly, then-President Trump refused, and he was not forced, to testify during the Mueller hearings and, as a result, it could then not be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump, himself, had personally colluded with the Russians, although, literally all those so working on his behalf were appropriately charged and found to be culpable.

Also, it was proven that then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, incredibly, had provided presidential polling data to a Russian agent throughout the 2016 presidential election process, and Trump has actually praised Russia no fewer than 100 times for its involvement, and the Trump campaign has lied about having more than 100 contacts with the Russians during the 2016 election, leading one to legitimately conclude, as have many in the government, that Trump had become a security risk for our great nation.

Hopefully, when all such concerns have, finally, been resolved, we, as a nation, emerge, all the stronger.

Richard Hord

Martins Ferry