President implicating his country in exploitation? (5)
I believe the answer is:
abuse
'exploitation?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'president implicating his country' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'country' could be 'us' (United States) and 'us' is located in the answer.
'president' could be 'abe' (Abraham (Abe) Lincoln) and 'abe' is present in the leftover letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for abuse that I've seen before include "Berate - exploitation" , "Misemploy - invective" , "Maltreat" , "Ill treatment" , "Mistreatment" .)