Experts weigh in on former President Donald Trump’s indictment, impact on Republican Party

WIL STEIGERWALD Lantern reporter steigerwald.47@osu.edu

Former U.S. President Donald Trump hasn’t been convicted, but that didn’t divert any eyes from the first-ever U.S. president to be indicted for a crime.

Trump showed up to his arraignment April 4 after being indicted on 34 felony counts of business falsification charges. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. Paul Beck, professor emeritus of political science, said Trump’s indictment and arraignment is not comparable to anything in U.S. history and can impact the Republican Party’s support of the former president and the younger generation’s association with the party.

“There’s no president who has been indicted before, maybe some are thinking of President Nixon back half a century ago, who probably would have been indicted and convicted were he not pardoned afterwards, but this is a first,” Beck said.

Beck said however Trump’s case finishes out — whether he is proven guilty or not — that there even being a case to start with does not look good for the nation as a whole.

“I think we’ve taken a real hit here, and it’s been an embarrassment to us,” Beck said. “It means that our position as leaders of the free world is no longer as unchallengeable as it used to be.”

Beck said while it depends who gets voted into office next, he believes a former president indictment is unlikely to happen again.

“I think it’s more likely a one-off situation,” Beck said. “I want to hope so because this is messy business and, you know, nobody likes to see this.”

The section of the case regarding falsification of business records stems from an attempt to cover up hush money payments to American adult actress Stormy Daniels before Trump’s 2016 election campaign. This was an attempt to keep Daniels quiet about an alleged affair between the two, Danny Cevallos, MSNBC legal expert and partnered Ohio State speaker, said.

Cevallos said Trump’s team pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming the payments were made instead by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer.

Cevallos said falsification of business records in the state of New York is not a felony, but instead a misdemeanor. What makes this case a felony is the claim that business records were falsified to cover up or commit another crime.

“An additional crime can be a violation of any rule, any order, any regulation, and it’s very broad,” Cevallos said.

Cevallos said there are three potential options for the additional crime in this case: a federal election law violation, a state election law violation or a tax violation. It has not been stated which of the three violations will be used in the felony charge.

Cevallos said according to New York law, Trump does not have to be charged with an additional crime to turn the case into a felony, a crime just has to have occurred. Beck said he predicts the Republican Party will slowly start experiencing damages as a result of Trump’s arraignment, specifically in one important area.

“It’s losing particularly young people,” Beck said. “Young people are less inclined to want to identify with the Republican Party today than they were 10 years ago.”

Beck said the fallout of the arraignment will likely not change Trump’s projected Republican nomination in the 2024 election, but could impact his chance at the presidency.

“Unless the support base changes in demonstrable ways, he could be pretty much assured of the nomination,” Beck said. “Now, the other question of course is ‘OK, getting the nomination is one thing, can he win the election?’ And that, at least in my view, is very doubtful.”

Beck said the one thing to keep an eye out for as Trump’s case slowly unfolds is a potential abandonment of Trump by other Republican politicians.

“One thing about politicians, Democrats and Republicans, is that they don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of an issue, so they are going to be paying very close attention to how this is paid among the public,” Beck said. “If it turns out that it’s really not helping Trump very much, we may begin to see them deserting him.”

Beck said the only way he could see Trump winning the 2024 election after his arraignment would be if the Electoral College vote widely differs from the popular vote, which he said is possible.