I sent the following email to Jon Tester’s office today, and am publishing it as an open letter for public discourse. Tester swears he is all about transparency – makes you wonder why he has buried this issue for the entirety of his service?
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To Whom It May Concern,
If you hired someone to work for your office who never did what you required of them, would not do the work in their job description, would you keep them in your office? If that person signed an employment contract and did not do the work they agreed to do, would you keep them? Would you give them bonuses, or pay raises? If they decided they wanted to go outfit a campaign car with a new radio instead of mail flyers to get people to vote, seriously, why would you keep paying that person? Would you not find someone else to do that person’s work?
When Jon Tester took office, he took an oath – which is little different than a contract. This oath embodies the job description of every U.S. Senator and U.S. public servant. Let me remind you what Jon swore to:
“I, Jon Tester, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
The first lines of this oath states that Jon’s *primary* duty is to defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and *domestic*. He did not take an oath to defend veterans, farmers, hunters or land owners – he took an oath to defend the Constitution. And arguably the single most important facet of the Constitution are the civil liberties guaranteed to the citizens of this country.
As an elected official, Jon works for *ALL* citizens – not just the elite groups he has decided to champion. As an employee of the United States government, he is paid an over-inflated salary to do work on behalf of *ALL* of his constituents, who collectively hire him through the voting process. However, Jon Tester is not doing the first and foremost duty of his job: he is not defending the Constitution from domestic threats.
For fourteen years now, I have been detained as a political prisoner in the United States – because I exercised my Constitutional First Amendment rights to bring grievance against government WITHOUT FEAR OF MOLESTATION. Yet I was thrown into prison under a fraudulent warrant, detained for sixteen months while the corrupt officials whom I had sued terrorized people in my life, then manufactured a false witness to convict me in a kangaroo court, a witness who was dead ten days after the trial!
Every single day I receive more and more requests from Jon Tester asking for financial help in his campaign bid to hold his seat against his Republican challenger. And every day I am reminded that Jon is not even doing the job he was *hired* to do – so what reason do I have to pay him what amounts to *bonuses* above his salary for work he is not doing?
Do not mistake my words: I do *not* support Rosendale. But how can I support Jon when he will not address such a fundamental violation of his oath of office?
I have started petitions. I have written letters. I have called (last time, the person taking my call even told me, “The Senator knows who you are”, because he recognized my name!). Yet Jon will not so much as lift a finger to aid and defend the constitutionally mandated civil liberties he took an oath to protect.
So I ask again: why are you asking for more money from the people you work for, when you refuse to do the most basic job you were hired to do?
I would really like Jon Tester to answer that question.
In the interests of transparency, I will be posting this as an open letter on my blog, The Great Montana Conspiracy (https://monspiracy.wordpress.com).
The Great Montana Conspiracy 