Earlier this week, America watched transfixed as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a letter from a little boy who called himself Pickle:

She then tweeted a pic of the letter:

Dylan aka Pickle thank you for your letter and hope to meet you soon! pic.twitter.com/XZlJARZ9cs — Sarah Huckabee (@SarahHuckabee) July 26, 2017

Cute. Seems like a nice kid. Not everything has to be awful all the time, right?

But then, because it’s 2017, we began to hear from Pickle Truthers. “Who is this kid? Does he even exist? How can this letter be real? Can any handwriting experts verify that this wasn’t written by Trump himself? How could anybody actually like him?” Etc.

Democracy Dies in Darkness, which is why Monica Hesse at the Washington Post felt duty bound to shine a light on this matter of utmost import. And she has uncovered the startling truth: Pickle Lives!

SueAnn Harbin’s younger son had come home from school during the presidential race last year and announced that he liked Trump. His third-grade class in Stockton, Calif., was holding a mock election, so they were learning about the candidates. He liked that Trump had the same name as his friend Donald. He liked the candidate’s suits. He Googled “Donald Trump” and learned about all the hotels he owned around the world, and that seemed exciting to him.

His name was Dylan. When he was a baby, his older brother started calling him Dyl-Pickle, and eventually the Dyl dropped away.

So, we found Pickle. He is real, definitely real. He likes watching baseball and playing on his scooter and Donald Trump.

Whew!

Jeff Bezos just overtook Bill Gates as the richest man in the whole wide world, and this is one of the benefits of such staggering wealth. He’s got so much dough, he can afford to pay people to track down little kids who write letters to the President of the United States, just in case it’s all some sort of trick.

That’s what the pros call journalism.

Glad we got that sorted out. But is it really such a shock that a lot of little kids like Trump? He’s a walking cartoon character. This new Stephen Colbert animated Trump series is redundant.