Open Letter to Senator John Thune

An Appeal to Conscience

May 31, 2024

The Honorable John Thune

United States Senate

Washington, D.C. 

Dear Senator Thune: 

I’ve written before. Six times. 

After my first (August 30, 2018), you responded with a cordial hand-written note indicating that you looked forward to the day we might have a personal conversation.

Apparently, my letters have failed to influence you to act in a way that reflects your conscience. Your latest Tweet, in which you dismiss the court’s verdict and endorse the former President, has satisfied no one. Reading through the hundreds of comments, Trump loyalists decry your “lukewarm” defense. “Wimpy.” “Rhino.” … and worse. Those of us who believe Trump has turned our country into a virtual civil war aren’t happy either.

To this day, I cannot understand how you can possibly support this man. The only imaginable explanation is that you want to win another term and perhaps take McConnel’s place as Senate party leader. Is pandering to this now-convicted felon the only way you can win?

Here are some questions I would like to hear you answer:

• Did Donald Trump have sex with Stormy Daniels as Melania was delivering their first child? 

  • Do you really believe Trump’s denials for one minute?

• Did Stormy Daniels bank $130,000 in exchange for an NDA just weeks before the 2016 election as the Trump campaign reeled over the Access Hollywood tape (... “grab them by the p____”…)?

• Did Michael Cohen take a loan against his house to expedite the payment?

• Did Trump reimburse him and pay him a bonus for “taking care of it”?

• Did, what Trump admitted in his own Tweet, his accounting records falsify the record calling the reimbursement a legal fee?

• Has Trump consistently, boldly lied about the entire affair? (We now know of three women who Trump has paid to keep silent about their sexual encounters with him.)

• This list of improprieties could go on for pages… you are aware of them all.

  • Note - Even if the conviction is overturned on some “technicality”... the answers to the above questions do not change. The answer to each is YES.

• FINAL QUESTION: IS THIS THE MAN YOU ENDORSE TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?

This is the man who says, “Stupid people pay taxes.” This is the man who says “insane asylums and prisons are being emptied all over the world and sent to our borders…” This is the man who triggered the January 6 assault on our Capital with the intent to overturn the election. 

You know the rest.  

And you want to give him another term.

I know where you went to college - Biola University - a Christian college. I know your church background - the same as mine: The Evangelical Free Church. Your brother is a career pastor, ordained by the EFCA. Your family prays for you. We pray for you, too.

How many opportunities have you had to put the Trump take-over of your party to an end? You and your Republican colleagues sat silently by and watched this man take control of your party, half the media, and half the nation.

In August 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott along with Congressman John Jacob Rhodes met with Richard Nixon and told him that he had lost his party's support. Impeachment was inevitable. He should, he must resign, they said. The following day, he did.

Your Tweet was enormously disappointing to me. I believed better of you.

If you are truly a person of influence, if you are a person of integrity, if you are a person committed to character, if you are a person of biblical faith, it’s not to late.

Gather your colleagues, sit down with this man, and tell him - it’s over. Step down. For the good of our country.

Please - put an end to this national nightmare.

Ken Kemp