What's happening to the 'swamp' in Washington

Unlike his sons, who enjoy killing endangered animals and lobby to have trophy hunting expanded, our president has little interest in the sport of hunting. Maybe it's our commander-in-chief's bone spurs (the ailment which enabled him to uphold the Trump family tradition of avoiding military service) which prevents him from sports other than golf and swamp fishing.

Our president says, using his swamp lingo, we Americans who disagree with his incoherent, amoral policies are "scum." Fishing for compliments and camaraderie, kowtowing and fawning, our president says Kim Jong Un is "a smart cookie," Putin is "a great leader" and he trusts Putin over the U.S. intelligence community.

Using top administration positions, ambassadorships and pardons as his lure and bait, our president's cesspool trolling snags slippery lobbyists, incompetent donors and unqualified loyalists. We hadn't realized his campaign promise to Drain the Swamp meant the Republican standard-bearer would drain that swamp by filling the highest offices in our nation with his swamp catch.

Our president's latest swamp catch appointment is acting intelligence director, Richard Grenell. Grenell is of the ilk of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani - those who shamefully sell their American influence to Eastern European oligarchs and politicians. Grenell, a self-enriching, unqualified Trump loyalist, will now oversee all U.S. intelligence agencies.

It is horrifying to witness our Republican Congress mutating into an impotent spineless mass, becoming bottom feeders in that slimy swamp and enablers of an insecure, lawless bully as he clears the path for Russia's interference in our elections.

Jane Cox

Wheaton