Suitably Ironic: University of Florida Student Body President Faces Impeachment for Paying $50,000 in Student Funds to Donald Trump Jr.
November 14, 2019
Like father, like son, it’s all about the con. (Gage Skidmore)
BUZZFLASH NEWS UPDATE
While his father faces impeachment, Donald Trump Jr may be responsible for the impeachment of University of Florida Student Government President Michael C. Murphy. The call for his impeachment has been forwarded to the student senate for impeachment hearings.
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At issue is $50,000 paid to Trump Jr. and girlfriend/Trump campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle for an October 10th Trump campaign-style speech at the university. The $50,000 was authorized by Murphy, who comes from a family politically connected to Trump, to be taken from required student activity fees that amount to about $500 per student per year.
A resolution asking the student senate to proceed with impeachment hearings against Murphy charges that Murphy “colluded” with Trump Victory National Financial Consultant Caroline Wren to be paid the funds for a speech that reflected “his [Murphy’s] own expressed political beliefs.” Furthermore, the resolution included the complaint that Murphy “not only endangered students marginalized by the speakers’ [Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle] white nationalist supporters, but also abused his power to advance a particular political party at the expense of the students he should represent.”
The impeachment resolution notes that the Student Body Statutes forbid the expenditure of any student body or activity funds “in support or against a political party at any level.”
The “smoking gun” that led to the impeachment push came with the publication of email exchanges between Donald Trump Jr. and Trump campaign official Wren. The article about the emails was posted in the independent University of Florida newspaper, The Alligator:
Emails show a Donald Trump re-election campaign official personally asked UF Student Body President Michael Murphy in September to bring Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle to campus the following month.
Caroline Wren, national financial consultant of Trump Victory, the president’s 2020 re-election committee, said she wanted to bring Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Tommy Hicks to UF either Oct. 9 or 10.
“We met at my house on the 4th of July,” Wren wrote in the Sept. 10 email. “I wanted to follow up with you regarding a speaking engagement at the University of Florida for Donald Trump Jr.”
Murphy responded Sept. 11 saying he’d “love to hop on a phone call” to discuss bringing the three to UF.
Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle spoke Oct. 10 at the University Auditorium to an audience of more than 800 for a $50,000 joint payment, which came from student tuition fees. Hundreds protested outside the venue.
A November 12 article in the Tampa Bay Times included an Instagram posting of Murphy at Trump’s Inauguration:
University of Florida Student Body President Michael Murphy, facing impeachment, with companion at a Trump Inaugural Ball. Tampa Bay Tribune screenshot from Instagram.
According to the Tamp Bay Tribune, half of the student senate will hear the case for Murphy’s impeachment, with an opportunity for him to defend himself. If that half of the University of the Florida student senate votes to proceed with impeachment, the other half of the senate will make a decision about removal from office.
As the Tampa Bay Tribune article observed, “For only the second time in the school’s 115-year history, a student president faces impeachment — and this time it’s happening with a U.S. president under the same threat.”
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