I have mistakenly doubted the claims of President Trump. I was put off by his claims of biggest, best, first, and his favorite phrase: “the likes of which you’ve never seen.”

My only excuse is I let my eyes lead me astray in the first days of his presidency, when press secretary Sean Spicer, claimed the Trump inaugural audience was the largest ever. However, comparative photos of the previous inaugurations showed they had larger audiences.

My errors compounded as I compared claim after claim that was proven incorrect or untrue by the fact-checking media. The errors of my ways became clearer to me when Spicer acknowledged he knew the inaugural audience wasn’t as big as he said it was.

Then there were other events: firing the FBI director; threatened firing of the special prosecutor; attacks on the attorney general and the White House chief of staff; disparagement of his own intelligent agencies’ evidence of Russian interference in our elections; the unorthodox, undefined “diplomatic” role of his daughter at the Olympics; revocation or downgrade of security clearances for 30 White House staffers, including son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Now, Hope Hicks, director of communications and a long-time part of Trump businesses, has admitted telling investigators “white lies” for the president and said she will resign.

I now believe the Trump presidency is truly “one, the likes of which, you have never seen before.” The Borgia family in the Middle Ages was close, but the Trumps are the winners. Never has there been an administration that was so rife with vested self-interest and conflicts. Never has there been such Machiavellian purposeful deceit by an egocentric family clique playing Russian roulette with our democratic election process by refusing to believe incontrovertible evidence they feel might threaten their perceived legitimacy.

— Richard Sorensen

Salisbury