If Trump were anyone else...

An excerpt from a column in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof:

Suppose 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,” the director might respond. He would suggest her Social Security payments could resume, but he’d like the widow to give him her late husband’s collection of rare coins.

Everybody would see that as an abuse of power. Whether we’re Republicans or Democrats, we would all recognize it’s inappropriate for a federal official to use his or her power over government resources to extract personal benefits. The Social Security official could say the payments resumed, or assert that the widow’s son had engaged in skulduggery, but he’d be out of a job and would face a criminal investigation.

Or what if I suggested to a university president that I was planning some glowing columns about his institution and asked for “a favour,” noting my child was applying for admission.

We might disagree about whether to call this bribery, extortion or a quid pro quo, and might disagree about precisely which statute was violated, but there is no doubt this would be a firing offence and perhaps lead to a criminal investigation.

Shouldn’t we hold the president of the United States to as high a standard as the head of a Social Security office and a journalist?