Donald Trump became the first former president to be charged with a crime when he was arrested with 34 felony counts for falsifying New York business records. The scandal spotlights Trump’s controversial reputation at a time where only 21% of Americans trust the government to do the right thing at least “most of the time,” according to Pew Research Center.

According to USA Today, Trump’s arrest and subsequent arraignment centered around hush money payments that he allegedly directed his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to pay to adult film star Stormy Daniels as well as payments made by American Media Inc. (AMI), to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a doorman who worked at Trump Tower who “claimed to have a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock.” Trump later reimbursed AMI. 

The payments were to suppress information, such as the women’s alleged affairs with Trump during his marriage, that could have marred his 2016 campaign run.  

Daniels, McDougal, and the doorman were paid $130,000, $150,000, and $30,000 respectively. Making hush money payments is not illegal in the state of New York where Trump is being charged, but the accusations against him of attempting to cover up those payments constitute fraud. 

“I think the fact that he would bribe people and take advantage of his power and money is unacceptable and despicable in a way that gets me really angry. It’s absolutely insane to me that he even has that power,” said Tina Sum, a sophomore.

The case is being led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who asserted in a press release that Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.” 

According to that Manhattan District Attorney’s office press release, the 34 felony counts come from 11 falsified invoices, 12 falsified general ledger entries, and 11 checks falsely recording hush money payments as for a “non-existent retainer agreement.” A retainer agreement refers to a type of service contract where clients agree to pay people in advance for outlined services. In the case’s context, it means that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the alleged hush money payments he made for the former president, then lied in finance records by disguising those payments as ones for contracted legal services that did not exist.

The checks were all processed by the Trump Organization. Trump signed nine of them.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to eight counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Two of these counts were related to hush money payments to two women, widely believed to be Daniels and McDougal, that he made at the direction of a “candidate,” believed to be Trump, to influence the 2016 election. 

However, not everyone is convinced the former president is guilty. Trump has already called for his supporters to protest his arrest, and many Republicans are rallying behind him, denouncing the charges.

“If you ask Democrats, they think he’s guilty and that this is showing the justice system works—not even a former president is above the law. If you ask Republicans, this is a political witch hunt, with a Democratic district attorney going after a former Republican president and that it is a complete collapse of our criminal justice system,” said Greer Stone, an AP United States Government and Microeconomics teacher and the vice mayor of Palo Alto.

The case is still in its early stages, but prospects of the former president being convicted or harshly punished are unlikely. 

Eric Smith, a retired professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), predicts the same outcome with Trump as in the case of Senator John Edwards, who was also prosecuted for paying hush money to an ex-mistress. The jury found him not guilty on one count and eventually the Department of Justice dropped the other charges.

“If an ordinary person were to pay off a sex worker with $180,000 and then write it off as a business expense in state tax returns, I would expect that person to be tried, convicted, and probably sent to prison. But presidential candidates aren’t ordinary people. They are held to different standards, although there is no written law that says that they should be,” Smith said. 

The charging of a former president with a crime is unprecedented and calls into question the morality of Trump and other politicians defending him in the eyes of some people. 

“I won’t say this about all politicians, but I’ve certainly lost faith in a lot of them because they fail to listen to the people that they’re governing. Instead they push what they want, not what the people that they’re representing want,” Sum said. 

Additionally, the word “politician” has come to be seen by many as a symbol of immorality, corruption, and selfishness. In 2019, American trust in the federal government to handle domestic issues hit a record low of 35% of the surveyed population, and the number has not strayed far in the years since.

“Scandals just confirm the inherent bias people already have that politicians are sleazy and will say anything. We’ve seen that politicians on both sides will say one thing, but when they see that the public doesn’t agree, they switch sides or defend some pretty heinous actions just because they think it’ll help them. I think this scandal is just going to increase political apathy and turn more people off from public service and politics,” Stone said. 

Furthermore, Trump’s arrest comes at the dawn of the 2024 presidential race, of which he is the frontrunner to receive the Republican nomination. The scandal may be boosting his campaign, not hurting it, at least in the short term.

“The arrest could really help Trump with the primary, because now it seems like some Republicans who were considering jumping into the race are now rallying behind and supporting him,” Stone said. 

However, now that Bragg has become the first to charge Trump with a crime, an invisible barrier has been broken that opens the door for further and more serious indictments of the former president. 

“That was one of the big impediments—who was going to be the first district attorney to take this historic step and officially indict a former president. Other attorney generals and district attorneys might feel empowered to go after Trump now that somebody’s done it. The U.S. Attorney General’s Office is looking into Jan. 6 and whether he incited or encouraged the insurrection. If it can be shown that he essentially incited it, he could suffer the legal consequences of the violent events of that day,” Stone said. 

Overall, scandals can contribute to the sense that the government is filled with dishonest politicians. According to Stone though, regardless of whether Trump is guilty or not—or in the broader sense, whether there is corruption or not—if the public perceives its existence, that is where the issue lies. 

“The government and politicians need to do a better job of addressing that perception of corruption because it’s crucial that people feel there’s integrity in the system, so that they can trust it. Otherwise, there’s nothing really holding it together—just the fact that we all put faith in the system and allow it to govern us,” Stone said.

This story was originally published on Scot Scoop News on April 23, 2023.