Letters to the Editor: Trump called Putin to gloat over Michael Flynn? You can’t make this stuff up

To the editor: What President Trump did after the Justice Department dropped charges against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was utterly unbelievable. He said he called Russian President Vladimir Putin to celebrate the reversal of the conviction and talk about “the Russia hoax, this absolute dishonest hoax.”

The U.S. intelligence apparatus has conclusively determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election campaign. It believes Russia continues with such meddling. However, our own president would rather believe Putin’s lies.

Trump’s actions and his words say the same thing: He has no faith in the American political system with the three co-equal branches of government and the balance of power. He wants to be a despot, like Putin. He does not deserve one single vote.

Michael Kranther, Los Angeles

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To the editor: This was not a “stunning legal victory for Flynn.” This was an obvious political move by an attorney general who forgot that he serves the people, not the president.

On two separate occasions, in open court and on the record, Flynn admitted his guilt about lying to the FBI. At the time he admitted his crime, Flynn’s lawyers were standing next to him. Given his status, one can believe that his lawyers were top notch.

As a lawyer who has handled cases in which my clients have entered a guilty plea, I know that Flynn was questioned by the U.S. attorney or the judge about the underlying facts before the judge would accept the guilty plea. This alone negates the rationale for dropping the case.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, has disgraced the uniform he once wore.

Andrew C. Sigal, Valley Village

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To the editor: Nowhere in your front-page article are the exculpatory facts of this mishandled investigation. This is what the Justice Department wrote in its motion to dismiss:

“The Government has concluded that the interview of Mr. Flynn was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn — a no longer justifiably predicated investigation that the FBI had, in the Bureau’s own words, prepared to close because it had yielded an ‘absence of any derogatory information.’”

Jim Gordon, San Diego