Letters to the Editor | Feb. 24, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared the Trump administration’s tariffs illegal may have pushed another front-page story to the inside of The Inquirer. The story that should have been out front described a large banner with a picture of Donald Trump unfurled and now hanging on the facade of the U.S. Department of Justice’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is a reminder that the department had been independent of the executive branch until Trump’s second term started last year.

The banner of Big Brother hanging on the building clearly indicates the department has surrendered its independence. Cases against Don Lemon, James Comey, Letitia James, and the six Democratic members of Congress who discouraged service members from obeying illegal orders are examples of how the Justice Department now bows to the president’s commands.

That banner must come down, and the Justice Department must recover its independence. To achieve this, we need a Congress that is also independent of the man on the banner.

Joel Chinitz, Philadelphia

Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) has rebuked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) for her criticism of Israel at the Munich Security Conference. Fetterman claims that “there was never any genocide in Gaza.” However, Israeli Holocaust and genocide researchers — Amos Goldberg, Omer Bartov, Daniel Blatman, Raz Segal, and Shmuel Lederman — have all identified Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

Goldberg writes: “What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions … and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate, conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.” Other genocide scholars, including Martin Shaw, author of the book What is Genocide? Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and Dirk Moses, senior editor of the Journal of Genocide Research, have drawn the same conclusion.

The United Nations Genocide Convention placed prevention at the center of international law. By rejecting credible evidence of genocide, Fetterman is undermining the postwar promise of “never again.”

Terry Hansen, Grafton, Wisc.

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