On Aug. 13th, President Trump admitted that he is intentionally and knowingly opposing the funding that the USPS needs to ensure that mail-in votes will be received, on time, to be counted in the November elections. He claims baselessly that mail-in voting is a threat to our democracy, because it will result in massive, nationwide voter-fraud not reflective of the people’s voice.

Under Trump’s postmaster general’s watch mail collection boxes and high-speed mail-sorting machines have been selectively removed from postal facilities across the U.S. These actions create obstacles to mail drop-off and delivery which have and will continue to have the effect of obstructing and/or retarding the passage of mail. Even though the postmaster general claims he has suspended these actions, much irreversible damage has already been done.

As the mail piles up in local postal facilities, staffing shortages, overtime budget cuts, and inefficient mail-sorting processes will slow mail operations to a snail’s pace, especially in large urban areas, inevitably making hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes tardy and not countable in November, actually suppressing the people’s voice in a country that prides itself on being a republic.

The real threat to our democracy is not mail-in voting as the president claims; it is Trump himself. Just where do “the people” fit in Trump’s vision of our democracy? Maybe he should look to the Constitution for advice.

The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution tell us that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Essential to the preservation of our democracy is the power to elect our representatives. And that power is reserved to the people.

Our representatives may not re-elect themselves or their successors as their terms end. That is up to us. We are citizens of a democratic republic, not subjects under the power of a separate state.

Nonetheless, Donald J. Trump has tried and is trying his best to ensure his own re-election, even if that means disenfranchising a large portion of the American electorate.

The facts speak for themselves . . .

Trump — through his actions and inactions, and by his tacit approval of his postmaster general’s policies–has endeavored and is endeavoring to obstruct or retard the passage of mail delivery that will disenfranchise American citizens in the upcoming elections, grounded on the pretext of nationwide voter-fraud.

Not only is the president prohibited by the constitution from doing so, he and his postmaster general are prohibited from doing so by the United States Crimes Code.

Section 1701 of the Crimes Code (Title 18 of the U.S. Code) specifically provides,

“Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”

Donald J. Trump was impeached for Abuse of Power. The GOP Senate Majority refused to remove him from office. That didn’t exonerate him; it enabled him to continue to undermine our democracy.

Maurice F. Baggiano, J.D., is a Jamestown resident. He has worked in federal law enforcement, and as a practicing attorney, a distinguished law book author/content editor, and an adjunct faculty member at several colleges/universities. Mr. Baggiano’s Letters to the Editor and op-Eds haven been published by Time Ideas, the Washington Post, The NY Times, the Buffalo News, the Albany Times-Union, and the Jamestown Post-Journal. Mr. Baggiano’s career in legal writing and research began at the Lawyer’s Cooperative Publishing Company in the 1980s, now part of the Thomson Reuters organization. In the 1980s and 1990s, he worked at LexisNexis in various editorial and managerial positions. Since the year 2000, Mr. Baggiano has owned and operated several successful legal editorial enterprises. He is the founder of lawOnTapp LLC, a legal publishing company. He is also a member of the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. Several years ago, he filed an amicus brief in the case of King v. Burwell, arguing successfully with other amici for the continuation of individual tax subsidies in states with federal exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.