Did the president of the United States just betray the nation’s security in return for a bribe from the Chinese government?
Don’t say that this suggestion is ridiculous: Given everything we know about Donald Trump, it’s well within the bounds of possibility, even plausibility.
Don’t say there’s no proof: We’re not talking about a court of law, where the accused are presumed innocent until proved guilty. Where the behavior of high officials is concerned, the standard is very nearly the opposite: They’re supposed to avoid situations in which there is even a hint that their actions might be motivated by personal gain.
Oh, and don’t say that it doesn’t matter one way or the other, because the Republicans who control Congress won’t do anything about it. That in itself is a key part of the story: An entire political party – a party that has historically wrapped itself in the flag and questioned the patriotism of its opponents – has become entirely complaisant in the possibility of raw corruption, even if it involves payoffs from hostile foreign powers.
The story so far: In the past few years ZTE, a Chinese electronics company that, among other things, makes cheap smartphones, has gotten into repeated trouble with the U.S. government. Many of its products contain U.S. technology – technology that, by law, must not be exported to embargoed nations, including North Korea and Iran. But ZTE was circumventing the ban.