I am writing this letter to the editor to express my disappointment with the direction of our elected president’s and appointed attorney general’s conduct. As a licensed Hawaii and California real estate salesperson, I know about professional ethics and that also the government regulates professionals through general civil and criminal laws.
To renew our licenses, real estate professionals must complete continuing education courses that include major ethical concerns: conflict of interest, misrepresentation, non-disclosure, mishandling of funds. We are bound by fiduciary duties to our clients, and failure to perform such duties can be constituted as false suggestion, false assertion, suppression, false promises, and even worse, constructive fraud.
In addition, there is a section about fair housing laws. State and federal laws make it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, religion, ancestry, physical disability, marital/familial status, age, and national origin. Real estate brokers and salespersons who violate these laws face not only civil litigation for damages, but also may face disciplinary action (including having their real estate license revoked).
Recently, our current president has publicly demeaned women, the disabled, Mexicans, veterans, people of other national origin, and people from certain religious backgrounds. Now our president has made a felony accusation about our previous president without substantiating any facts with the FBI or CIA.
This is a very serious charge by our president and his action just might be an impeachable offense. How would you respond if someone made felony accusations about you, or your mom, dad, brother or sister, and that person could not prove it with facts, and just lied about it? Do you think there should be consequences for that person? This is an insult to every American’s intelligence regardless of who you voted for in the last election.
Now the current attorney general (the person who oversees the rule of law and who was appointed by the president) at his confirmation hearing seems to have given a misleading answer to a question about his involvement with a Russian diplomat. In other words, he possibly lied under oath, committed perjury, and failed to disclose a material fact.
I remember watching TV back in the ‘70s when our then-president straight-faced lied to the American public when he said, “I am not a crook.” Well, we all know what happened to him. This just proves that a free press and the First Amendment are not our enemy. Unfortunately, political history has a way of repeating itself. If our president does not want to get burned, he should stop yelling fire, fire, fire! Because the great American people know the difference.
Ray Doblick is a resident of Keaau