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To the Editor:
Re “Aleksei Navalny, Putin Critic, Dies in Prison, Russian Authorities Say” (nytimes.com, Feb. 16):
Aleksei Navalny’s courage, fortitude, indomitable spirit and unshakable moral clarity will stand the test of time and serve as beacons of hope for victims of oppression and totalitarianism everywhere.
While the world mourns amid reports of his passing, Mr. Navalny’s legacy and all that he stood for during his relatively short life will never diminish in their capacity to inspire the collective will to be free despite the seemingly overwhelming obstacles in realizing this basic human desire in many parts of the world, including Mr. Navalny’s homeland.
Mark Godes
Chelsea, Mass.
To the Editor:
Aleksei Navalny’s heroic efforts for the principles of freedom, even up to his reported death, is in stark contrast to those Republicans in the U.S. Congress who refuse to pass an economic/military aid bill to support Ukraine’s effort to thwart Russia’s invasion. Shame on them.
John W. Kusek
Ithaca, N.Y.
To the Editor:
With the reported death of Aleksei Navalny at 47, after he was apparently in good health and spirits just the day before, the ultimate responsibility rests with Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Navalny no doubt knew that his return to Russia after Mr. Putin’s agents attempted to kill him by placing a deadly poison in his underwear was a high risk. Yet he and his organization persisted in exposing the massive corruption and evil of the Putin regime in spite of Mr. Navalny’s Arctic imprisonment.
No wonder the Ukrainians are fighting so bravely to escape Mr. Putin’s tyranny. How despicable that Donald Trump and his enablers undermine what Mr. Navalny and so many others have died for: democracy.
Tom Miller
Oakland, Calif.
The Scrutiny of Fani Willis’s Love Life
To the Editor:
Re “Sparks Fly as D.A. in Georgia Is Grilled on Her Relationship” (front page, Feb. 16):
To me, a person who met her husband at work, whose parents met at work, and whose paternal and maternal grandparents met at work, this dating relationship of the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, and the special prosecutor seems like the most natural thing in the world.
As an attorney, I have difficulty finding the conflict of interest. Ms. Willis is single, and she is enjoying the company of a co-worker and colleague. As we know, propinquity has led to love since antiquity. There might be a conflict of interest if Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor, were a defense attorney, but they are working together on the same “side” with the same goal.
The greatest irony, of course, is that a sexual predator and a known adulterer is attempting to discredit and disqualify two unattached, hard-working professionals for dating each other. As usual, former President Donald Trump’s motivations are borne of desperate self-interest and nothing else.
C.L. Randall
Venice, Fla.
To the Editor:
I am baffled by the Fani Willis love life issue, and the immense media coverage. I have practiced law for over 50 years and never seen a dispute involving whether two lawyers on the same side of the case are intimate. No doubt this has occurred multiple times in those cases, wasn’t a deep, dark secret, and wasn’t a concern.
What business is it of Donald Trump’s, or the court’s? Maybe the state might be concerned if its district attorney hired someone because of a personal relationship, but that’s between the state and Ms. Willis. It doesn’t affect Mr. Trump’s right to a fair trial at all.
Len Simon
San Diego
Ex-Justice Stephen Breyer’s Tribute to a French Legal Star
To the Editor:
Re “Robert Badinter, 95, Who Won the Fight to Abolish Capital Punishment in France” (obituary, Feb. 12):
Thank you for your obituary of Robert Badinter, formerly president of France’s Constitutional Council and minister of justice. He was a good friend. We collaborated on a book; we participated in judicial seminars on both continents; we talked with students who would pepper us with questions, some friendly, some not.
But far more than that, Mr. Badinter’s life has become a symbol in France, and throughout the world, of the law’s capacity to help protect fundamental rights and freedom.
Since the end of World War II, Americans and Western Europeans have accepted as governing principles the need to strengthen democracy, to maintain fundamental human rights, to seek basic equality and to work within the framework of a rule of law.
For example, through the creation of the Marshall Plan and NATO, and since then in many other ways, we and the Europeans have worked together to help minimize conflict and to achieve these ends.
Robert Badinter’s long life reminds us of how those who live in different nations can work, both together and as individuals, toward attaining those objectives — today when the need to do so is as great as ever.
Stephen Breyer
Cambridge, Mass.
The writer is the former Supreme Court justice.
G.O.P. ‘Moral Collapse’
To the Editor:
“House Republicans Declare Trump Did Not Engage in Insurrection” (news article, Feb. 7) was sad but predictable. After violent criminals who masqueraded as patriots invaded our Capitol on Jan. 6, congressional Democrats and Republicans rightly blamed a president who had inflamed his supporters in a protest that day based on his big lie of a stolen election.
Republicans’ courage quickly dissolved, though. In a stunning moral collapse, they went from speaking truth to power to covering up the truth of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Their response to the insurrection became “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”
So, when Republicans in Congress continue to defend the indefensible Jan. 6 behavior of their leader, the words of Liz Cheney, the courageous former Republican representative, ring in my head: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
Bruce Kirby
Rockville, Md.
The World Our Children Will Inherit
To the Editor:
Re “We Americans Neglect Our Children,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Feb. 8):
We are, indeed, neglecting our children, in all the ways that Mr. Kristof points out. But if those ways aren’t enough to break my heart, I am even more troubled by the fact that we are ignoring the bigger picture — the kind of world they will be inheriting from us, the older generation.
If we continue to avoid confronting the need for significant changes in our lifestyle, our economic and agricultural systems, and our level of arrogance toward others on this planet, the next generation will be facing political, humanitarian and environmental disaster, affecting the poor first (as always), but ultimately affecting all.
Katherine Schwarz
Nyack, N.Y.
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