Nicholas Kristof makes it simple enough for anyone to understand. Republicans, get it now?
“What if the wrongdoing simply involved the head of a Social Security office, a principal, a hospital director or a journalist? Why allow a president to get away with what would be a firing offense for anyone else?”
Suppose that a low-ranking government official, the head of a branch Social Security office, intervened to halt a widow’s long-approved Social Security payments. The widow, alarmed that without that income she might lose her home, would call the branch director to ask for help.
“I’d like you to do me a favor, though,” the director might respond. He would suggest that her Social Security payments could resume, but he’d like the widow to give him her late husband’s collection of rare coins.
Likewise, imagine that a high school principal expelled the police chief’s son but offered to readmit the boy if the police department would just open a criminal investigation into his ex-wife before their child custody hearing.
Or suppose that the head of a public hospital offered to provide free medical care to employees of a construction company if it remodeled his kitchen?
“Everybody would see that as an outrageous abuse of power.”
Whether we’re Republicans or Democrats, we would all recognize that it’s inappropriate for a federal official to use his or her power over government resources to extract personal benefits.
Remember all this as we hear Trump’s defenders try to divert attention to the whistle-blower, to Hunter Biden or to anything else.
“If the Republicans want to oversee an investigation of how children of American government officials monetize their parents, that’s a worthwhile effort. But I doubt Ivanka Trump agrees.” 🔥 😂
Read the entire article to see how Kristof ties everything into the testimony of William Taylor and George Kent from today’s Impeachment Hearings.
