It might not seem important to us living in Western North Carolina, but it is. Some of our U.S. elected officials are ignoring the unquestionable proof that Russia is still attacking the USA. One is Rep. Mark Meadows, “our” congressman in Washington. He has backed Trump in stonewalling actions to prevent Russia’s mind-bending social media war and election hacking. Seems to be we’d better replace Meadows before his betrayal of North Carolina and the USA reaches a point of no return.

What the Russians have already been able to do should terrify us: Britain just announced proof that a GRU (Russian spy agency) hacker stole top-secret U.S. nuclear-reactor technology. Another GRU agent tried to destroy evidence of the Novichok poisoning in Britain; that evidence is in chemical weapons research labs in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Britain, U.S., and other Western intelligence agencies have proof — there’s no questioning it. Here in the U.S., our Special Counsel Mueller has indicted over a dozen Russian agents. One of them is the GRU spy-murderer whom the British identified. Good for us, good for Britain; we have excellent judicial and intel experts. Special Counsel Mueller himself is a cyber-security expert. 

This proof must worry our Rep. Meadows, who still backs Trump. On live TV from Helsinki, Trump denied the Russian government had anything to do with hacking into U.S. infrastructure. He denied the Russians tried to affect the 2016 election. He has denied Russians are trying to fix the upcoming 2018 election. He has continued to support Putin and trash our own intelligence agencies. ​He attacks Mueller, who is a lifelong Republican. Trump has supported Paul Manafort, about whom there is overwhelming ​proof​ that he worked for a Putin/Russia organization. Meadows supports all of this. Does North Carolina really need a Congressman who supports what looks like treason, sounds like treason, and smells like treason?

Mary Jane Curry

Haywood County