Jack Teixeira is the 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who took home classified documents from the Air Base. He shared them online to impress his friends. He is currently in a jail cell awaiting trial for unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. I have not heard one Republican politician call for him to be released, let alone claim the government has been weaponized against him.

I mention this because Donald Trump removed boxes of classified, secret, top secret and secret compartmentalized documents from the White House as he was leaving office. These are documents he was not allowed to possess. Some of those documents he shared with people who had no security clearances. Oddly, his party, including many of those running for president, are adamant he should not be held accountable and claim he is being indicted for political reasons. They say the government has been weaponized against him. Nonsense. The government spent 18 months asking him to return these documents including getting a court to order the return. He refused to comply. He hid the documents from his own attorneys knowing they would tell the court he had no more documents. If Donald Trump had returned the documents when ordered he would not have been indicted. It is time his party put the rule of law and the nation’s security above this corrupt man.

Walter Hamilton

Portsmouth

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