Senator Susan Collins called to give accountability for fraud accusations that were buried by Trump's justice department- WWWTP?

It’s Maine’s turn to be concerned about Susan Collins | Editorial
The senator’s complacent response to open allegations of bribery sends voters a very clear and disrespectful message.

Echo editorial board opinion published in the Maine Sunday Telegram.

The words “fraud, waste and abuse” have formed part of a popular Republican Party slogan in recent years. The party’s most prominent figures obsess publicly about the ferreting out of wrongdoing they insist is rampant in government, at the federal level as well as here in Maine.

Against this intolerant backdrop, one might think that last week’s reporting by ProPublica on the killing off, in 2025, of a federal investigation into allegations of bribery by Sen. Susan Collins and staff would be met with a degree of solemnity if not humility. Think again.

The Collins campaign’s emphasis on the events taking place “seven years ago” cynically attempts to detract from the crux of the story, which hinges on the collapse of the investigation — reportedly active until the beginning of last year — due to a newly insufficiently staffed and uninterested FBI.

This editorial board isn’t about to make fun or light of the name of the made-up LLC used on the scan of the $150,000 check presented by ProPublica (“the Society of Young Women Scientist [sic] and Engineers”) which sought to exploit the white-hot cause of women in STEM.

Nor are we going to attempt to adjudicate on what the emails between Kao and political operative Scott Reed suggest or reveal.

In a functioning and properly resourced government, that’s a job that falls squarely to the Department of Justice. It’s a process that, once commenced, ought to have been followed to its logical administrative and legal end.

So let’s keep the focus on the demise of the probe and the conditions that led to its abandonment. Whether or not there are 3D-printed vessels to show for this tortured bit of negotiating, as Collins’ staffers were at pains to highlight with flashcards at a Portland press conference last week, becomes irrelevant in that light.

In the absence of anything approaching law enforcement as usual — an expectation reasonably held by the public, a basic check on congressional power — it’s audacious to insist on innocence and stoke conspiratorial lines of thinking by reaching for terms like “partisan hit job.”

Collins was quick to set the mood, labeling the exhaustive and level reporting a “a partisan hit job” and questioning why “anyone would take the word of a felon who’s been convicted twice” and “a convicted liar.”  (OMG this is beyond ludicrous❗)

That this particular felon — a Hawaii-based military contracting executive named Michael Kao — was found guilty of money laundering and fraud would seem to some to increase his credibility on such matters. For many of the claims made by Kao, the reporting referred to corresponding emails and other materials.

“Shame on ProPublica,” Collins told the Wall Street Journal, having said she was “offended” by the reporting — “so offensive” and “disgraceful.”

It is extremely disappointing to watch Collins and members of her staff move to immediately discredit a thorough and fair piece of investigative journalism on political and personal grounds.

The Trump administration has wailed about fraud while studiously dismantling the apparatus that’s in place to catch it. Borrowing straight from ProPublica: “Trump’s Justice Department no longer takes on public corruption in any meaningful fashion, former officials said. The investigation sparked by Kao’s revelations is dead. And the government is no longer talking to an informant who had offered a road map to corruption in Congress.”

This is just one of many unsettling paradoxes of this second presidential term.

Voters are bothered by this appearance of wrongdoing — it would be hard not to be. To be satisfied that this is best we can do, a voter would need to be disillusioned with the executive branch to the point of defeat.

There’s a world in which Sen. Collins, her staffers and supporters could confidently and respectfully acknowledge that widespread disquiet. That hasn’t happened. We’re not at all hopeful that it will.

Gettysburg is Not a Nostalgic American History Lesson

Letter to the editor in the Maine Sunday Telegram July 7, 2013:

Celebration of Gettysburg glorifies massive atrocity

(Dear Editor)  Maybe you could explain to me why thousands of people gather together to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg ("Gettysburg: 'A most unexpected battle,'" June 30).

Eight thousand Americans were killed at that battle in two days, leaving how many thousands of children without fathers; how many grieving parents and wives; and forever changing the lives of thousands more soldiers who lost limbs and sanity. Mourning, forgetting, praying for forgiveness for such an atrocity, I can understand. But re-enacting? I don't get it.

War is a tragedy and a massive moral failure of somebody. And, in my opinion, those who celebrate it glorify what they should be mourning.

Donald F. Fontaine
Falmouth Maine

One attribute of being a blogger is how a person, like me, can sometimes become an expert of the moment, on nearly any issue.  Gettysburg is one example.

I'm nowhere near a history major or even particularly well informed about the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863).  

Although I've visited the battlefields of Gettysburg, they are so sad, it's hard to stay for very long.  As a matter of fact, I'm more enamored by the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, located in nearby Emmitsburg, Maryland. 

Nevertheless,  I took exception when the Military Channel recently played a history about the Battle of Gettysburg, whereby the opening sound bites were from two high ranking US military officers, who told viewers how the South's General Robert E. Lee was a wonderful, if not one of America's greatest, generals. 

Therefore, as an expert blogger who's not particularly well informed about the Battle of Gettysburg, this what I have to say about those praise comments about Robert E. Lee:

1.  Even I know how an advancing army must take advantage of a surprise attack.  General Robert E. Lee certainly didn't surprise the Union Army when he decided to invade Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.  Everyone seemed to know what was forthcoming.  Moreover, Lee didn't have a resistance army in place to sabotage the Union's defenses.

2.  General Robert E. Lee was outnumbered at the Battle of Gettysburg and he knew it.

3.  Union positions at Gettysburg were on the high ground, forcing Lee's Confederate Army to fight uphill.  Lee had to know this was not strategically desirable.  Surely, Lee studied the Battle of Bunker Hill when he attended West Point Military Academy (in fact, he graduated second in his class!).  In fact, reference US military history, the British won the Battle of Bunker Hill, albeit with considerable losses, when they defeated the Revolutionary Army; but they never again engaged in frontal battles against the Americans, as a result. Why did the British win at The Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston?  Because they fought from the high ground. (General Thomas Gage tried to decide how best to deploy his 5,000 British regulars. He realized that whichever side could take control of the high ground of Charlestown, Roxbury Heights, and Dorchester Heights would have the advantage in a battle.) General Lee may have forgotten his military war history

4. General Lee ordered "Pickett's Charge" without realizing how the Emmitsburg Road would have saved his troops from slaughter as they climbed an obstructing fence to advance on the Union line.

Somebody should have torn this fence down before the charge - but, again, Lee had no resistance support to do this.  Yet, if Confederate troops had known to use the road instead of climbing the fence, they could have gone around the obstruction to reform their battle lines. Instead, General Pickett's Charge tuned into chaos when a fence prevented the charging Confederate solders from defending themselves as they climbed, while creating unobstructed targets for the Union guns.  Recent Civil War research suggests there may have been many hundreds of Confederate soldiers who left at this point, because they realized the futility of their advancing charge.  General Lee retreated after being unable to penetrate the Union line with Pickett's Charge.  A General should certainly know the terrain where a battle is going on; so it's mystifying as to why neither Lee nor his subordinates knew about the Emmitsburg road or, if they did, why they didn't think to use it. 

To end, I don't think General Robert E. Lee was an especially good general.  By agreeing to lead the Confederate Army, he was surely defending a Southern way of life he believed in, or maybe, he just didn't care for President Abraham Lincoln. But, he wasn't a particularly brilliant military strategist. 

Thousands of people died and many more lives were devastated during a very hot three days in July, on the battle fields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Although it was a turning point in the war, pointing to a Union victory, it took another two years and thousands of more lives lost before Robert E. Lee surrendered.

Certainly, Gettysburg is a history lesson we should always commemorate, but praise for the Confederate General Robert E. Lee is misplaced.

Gettysburg is not a time or event to re-create nostalgia.  Rather, it's a period in American history that should never have happened.