1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

Open a formal investigation into Donald Trump's corruption of the presidency. The 250th anniversary of this republic deserves more than a "Freedom 250" spectacle that commentators across the political spectrum have called an empty, self-promotional disaster. Trump has turned the White House — a building John Adams prayed would be inhabited only by "honest and wise men" — into a monument to personal vanity. That is not a metaphor. It is a description of what is happening in plain sight. The American public is exhausted and increasingly numb to the scale of this corruption. That exhaustion is not consent. Economists are warning that markets are detached from reality, a war with Iran is spreading consequences across the Middle East, and extremist factions are gaining ground — all while this administration performs. Congress has oversight authority for exactly this moment. Use it. Demand accountability before the reckoning this country is clearly heading toward arrives without any record of who was responsible.