Written by Kaleah Syvirathphan and Annabelle Williamson

Early last week Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen were each convicted with eight counts of fraud in federal court. Manafort has been violating the law for decades and Cohen has been evading taxes. Paul Manafort being Trump’s former campaign manager and Michael Cohen being his attorney.

Cohen has pleaded guilty, going against his loyalty to the President, once saying that he’d “take a bullet” for Trump and paying off Stormy Daniels’ for relations with POTUS, but it seems like that loyalty was in fact one sided as Trump tweeted,

Paul Manafort was convicted of 5 counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. Trump was trying to defend him as a victim of “prosecutorial overreach” but also tried to distance himself from the situation. Trump told reporters in West Virginia, “It doesn’t involve me.”

With there being 2 political clubs on campus, the Republican, and the Liberal party, they each have their own opinion on the matter. The Republican club president is Caleb Rodriguez ‘20 and he believes that it’s important to prosecute those who’ve committed a crime and investigate from all angles. However, he doesn’t believe that this necessarily means that the President had anything to do with their offenses. “For the club, it could be something we discuss it just depends on what the members want to do as opposed to just discussing. Anytime you have such a situation so close to the President, it does have an effect on the rest of the government, It creates a lot of tension between the parties. Everything is around the President and has not been directly connected to him so his support hasn’t really changed. Personally, I don’t think he did anything illegal but if he did my opinion towards him would definitely change.”

When asked about whether Trump would be implicated Rodriguez said, “It’s concerning to think that ‘what if he did do something illegal’ but he’s innocent until proven guilty. It’s a toss-up, I was shocked to find out that a payment was paid to Stormy Daniels because I was thinking that maybe there wasn’t. It reminds me of the Iran Contra-Affair with Ronald Reagan. It could go either way.”

Kayleigh Hettick ‘19 is also part of the Teenage National Republicans club here on campus and she said, “There was evidence and they were charged, that was their bed they made to lie in. This very well could be discussed in our club. There’s going to be a lot of questioning and fear of not knowing what’s next. I think that scares a lot of people. We have uncovered a lot of things about Trump; while he was running for Presidency and throughout the years. It’s not really any different, people are used to hearing these things about the president. I don’t think it’s anything new. Him getting prosecuted could swing both ways, personally, hopefully not. It could be framing, it could be not. Overall, everybody needs to unite and love one another instead of dividing each other based on their political beliefs and who they want in office.”

The Liberal Club President, Aubrey Valdez ‘19 feels as though this is a very important topic for political clubs to be talking about and for students who are allowed to vote to know for upcoming elections. “This just says a lot about who the president is and the type of leaders we have the in our country and that these men are not who we should

be looking up to. These people shouldn’t be our leaders.” Valdez says. She continues to touch on how citizens of America will react to this news. “We really do live in a corrupt society and people don’t really care about that stuff. They’re just going to blow it off… they’re not going to take it into account for politics.”  Valdez ends with.

Makayla Hernandez ‘21 takes part and participates in the liberal club. Although the number of fraud accounts on part of Manafort and Cohen, she still had a lot to say on the issue. “I feel like it definitely has some sort of justice… it definitely shows a reflection back to how our government is. If you’re going to do immoral things, then there is going to be consequences and if we just let that slide then what does that say about us? We’re just kind of like a joke.” Hernandez says. She also disagrees with Valdez and believes that Republicans will take account for what has happened. “It might make people realize the amount of issues that are going on in the government… how problematic America is. But you can necessarily change someone’s views because they’re going to be dedicated to what they believe in.” Hernandez finishes with.

This is a tough time for President Trump. As of right now, he’s surrounded by many convictions of his former employees and lawsuits. The midterms are coming up and people aren’t hopeful that he’s going to succeed. There are talk that Trump might be impeached and analytics suggest he could resign in exchange for no prosecution after he leaves. There’s a lot buzzing around in the political world right now but what do you think of all this?

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Annabelle Williamson
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