In a recent Letter to the Editor, a writer declared that there is no evidence that Trump is a convicted felon or a rapist, so stop making stuff up about him.

Well, what about this: On June 3 last year, Trump was convicted by a New York jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, in an effort to hide a $130,00 hush money payment to a porn star over a sexual encounter he did not want to be made public before the 2016 election.

That case made him the only person to be elected president to be also convicted of a felony in our country’s history.

In July 2023, Trump lost a jury trial in New York over a rape complaint and libel for assaulting and defaming the victim, E Jean Carroll.

“Decades ago, the now President of the United States raped me,” Carroll said. The trial judge ruled that the jury found that the then-future two-time president had raped Carroll “in the common meaning of the word.”

But he had failed to successfully complete the intended act, so the finding was downgraded to “sexual misconduct.” Nonetheless the jury rewarded Carroll a $83.3 million judgement against Trump. Google it.

My favorite was the statement by Mary Trump, his niece and a licensed psychologist, that her uncle is a “sociopath” — a narcissist who only cares about himself and has little or no real empathy for anyone else.

And then there is Jan. 6, 2021.

Dave DeLeon

Haiku