Trump lacks remorse on executive excess and Democrats lack self-awareness

Trump partisans counter that there is nothing wrong with a president’s demanding that corruption be rooted out by countries receiving U.S. foreign aid, and that Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Generally speaking, those things are true. In this specific case, however, the president did not make an overarching request that Ukraine investigate corruption. The Defense Department had already done that, as U.S. law requires.

Instead, the president homed in on the Bidens, and the Bidens only. If, as the Trump defense says, the president is truly worried about Ukrainian corruption, why would he want to sic its notoriously corrupt law-enforcement system on anyone, much less an American. Wouldn’t our government first want to be satisfied that Ukraine had cleaned up its own house?

So, yes, this was far from “perfect.” Still, on these facts, for Democrats and Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) to treat what President Trump did as a hanging offense was ridiculous.