I haven’t been following the news coming out of Washington, D.C., until I read an article from The Washington Post titled “State Department intensifies email probe of Hillary Clinton’s former aides,” dated Sept. 28.

“The Trump administration is investigating the email records of dozens of current and former senior State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email, reviving a politically toxic matter that overshadowed the 2016 election, current and former officials said,” the article stated. “State Department investigators began contacting the former officials about 18 months ago, after President Trump’s election, and then seemed to drop the effort before picking it up in August, officials said.”

In October 2016, just days before the 2016 election, former FBI Director James Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered emails.

On June 14, 2018, the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz released its report of the handling of the investigation, finding no evidence of political bias or reason to prosecute Clinton.

With the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election looming in the near future, Washington is again facing another national security issue regarding an election.

On Sept. 24, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House has launched an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, citing he allegedly violated the Constitution in seeking help from a foreign leader to damage a political opponent.

According to news reports, this move comes after Trump allegedly spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate CrowdStrike, a global provider of security technology, and Joe Biden, the son of the former vice president and currently one of the Democratic presidential nominees.

While a breach of national security is a major issue and needs to be addressed, it is also time Trump and the political candidates in Washington stop trying to discredit each other.

It is time for this nation’s leaders to focus on issues that are really important to Americans, such as gun violence and gun safety issues, as well as stricter background and mental illness checks.

According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence website, 199 people have died in mass shootings since 2012.

Nine other people died Aug. 4 in Dayton, Ohio, after a gunman opened fire on a crowd outside of a nightclub before being shot and killed by police.

This nation’s leaders, on both sides of the aisle, need to do what is right for the American people, not their own agenda.

Susan Bryant

editorial assistant

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press