To the editor:

I didn’t want to write this letter this week because I didn’t want to partake in a very dark game being played by our wanton American political system. But with elections only days away, and since it is directly related, I felt that I needed to speak out against the heavy-handed power which has seeped into the lives of real people just trying to do good for the country.

Many people who know me have heard me mention a soldier whom I am close with. His name is Jeremy Michael Miller, who not only is a badass tattoo artist who inked the American Eagle on my back, but he is a U.S. national Wildland Firefighter, and a Ukraine War combat veteran, (who, as a civilian turned foreign fighter, will receive zero compensation for the injury he returned with.)

Jeremy empowered me to travel to Ukraine for a war-time civilian volunteer mission. Since being back, I have joined our nation’s leading effort to support Ukraine’s military, which includes the American-led unit Chosen Company of which Jeremy is a part. Through our partnership, we continue to make a positive global impact, directly from our local Southwest Florida community.

After months of nonstop brutal firefighting along the West of our country, Jeremy returned to Fort Myers Beach last week only to be arrested by the FBI for his activism in the Jan. 6 capitol protests. As soon as he got out on bond, our devoted countryman immediately joined a humanitarian mission to aid the Southeast amid the Helene floods, where he is transporting emergency vehicles from the West of our country to be delivered to North Carolina.

If I was convinced of election integrity, I wouldn’t feel the need to write these letters. I wholly stand with Jeremy Michael Miller against his wrongful political persecution, which blatantly comes in perfect sync with the heightened tension of the 2024 election cycle.

Never before in our American memory has their been a national disgrace such as this, where the FBI and justice system has taken upon itself to target and intimidate partisanship. Jeremy went to the capitol on Jan 6 on his own, as an individual, in order to practice his rights to peacefully protest what millions of Americans feared or believed to be election interference. He was not a part of a conspiracy. He did not hurt anybody. On the contrary, Jeremy was shot in the leg by law enforcement officer with a rubber gun, was sprayed multiple times, beaten with batons, and hit with riot shields. But now after years of stalking him, our US government has the temerity to accuse Jeremy of grabbing the shield of a law enforcement officer — the shield that they in fact were hitting him with.

The twisted irony of the D.C. court’s ridiculous charges against such a patriot really puts the disconnect of government and the will of its people into perspective, because he is a first responder who often works alongside law enforcement officers.

I know this good man. He is a soldier, a man who runs toward the enemy, not away from it. Before Hurricane Milton broke out, he checked in with me to make sure I evacuated. He checked in with me when I was in Ukraine to make sure I was safe. He has been there for me, and I know I count on him in moments of distress. He’s a protector, a fighter, literally, a defender of country and global freedoms.

I vehemently implore the defense, prosecution, and judges to work together to drop the charges against Jeremy Michael Miller and dismiss this case and all of the cases of the Jan. 6 capitol protestors who were wrongfully implicated for political purposes. We demand an end to tyrannical political lawfare in the United States Justice system, once and for all.

Alexandra Zakhvatayev

Cape Coral