On Oct. 10, Donald Trump Jr. and the former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle gave a speech at the University of Florida for $50,000 at the invitation of our student body president, Michael Murphy. Students protested, and normally that would have been the end of the story.
Instead, last week, a group of other student body senators and I initiated impeachment proceedings against Mr. Murphy over what we feel is a gross abuse of his power. In the resulting days, our campus drama has become national news, and Mr. Murphy has become a conservative martyr.
For many of his supporters, this is simply another story of campus leftists gone berserk and threatening free speech. In fact, it’s a much more complicated story, one that throws into question the use of public funds for partisan ends.
Michael Murphy has posted photos of himself on social media at President Trump’s inauguration and with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in the White House. He is the son of Dan Murphy, who works for the lobbying firm BGR Group. Dan Murphy maxed out donations to President Trump’s 2020 campaign, and is a known associate of Donald Trump Jr. The $50,000 that paid for the speaking fee came from mandatory student fees.
In response to our impeachment inquiry, the student body president hired Daniel Nordby — the one-time general counsel of former Florida governor and current senator Rick Scott — as his attorney. Mr. Scott called Murphy’s pending impeachment “shameful.” On Nov. 14 the Florida G.O.P. publicized a page on their website where supporters can add their name to support Mr. Murphy (and, one click below that, “contribute to keep America great”). That same day, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted colorful language about the Murphy impeachment inquiry and added: “Enough of this nonsense.”
After the Oct. 10 event, University of Florida alumna Mariana Castro submitted a public records request for all emails to and from Murphy concerning the invitation of the president’s son to campus. Her request returned an email thread from Caroline Wren, a veteran Republican fund-raiser. Ms. Wren works as a financial consultant for the Trump Victory Committee, a joint entity between the Trump 2020 re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee.
On Sept. 11, Ms. Wren emailed Mr. Murphy, referencing a Fourth of July meeting with him at her house. She added that she “would like to bring Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle and RNC Co-Chairman Tommy Hicks to the University of Florida.”
When our local paper, the Independent Florida Alligator, called Ms. Wren for comment on Oct. 30, she first stated that she didn’t know who Murphy was — which for sure doesn’t raise any eyebrows at all. Ms. Wren later responded via email to The Alligator, acknowledging that she and Mr. Murphy met over the summer. She insisted she had been acting in her personal capacity and that she “mistakenly forgot to remove my Trump Victory signature.”
Many people saw these emails as the smoking gun, as proof that Mr. Murphy had colluded with the Trump campaign to funnel student fees toward a partisan cause.
The emails were the final straw for me and my colleagues in the Student Government Senate.
On Nov. 12, we filed an impeachment resolution against our student body president for using student fees to advance his own expressed political beliefs and for violating our governing laws (specifically 808.12, part 5) that forbid student government funds from being used to support a political party.
And that was supposed to be it. Naturally, The Alligator reported on it. Then the Tampa Bay Times. The story continued to gather momentum, bolstered by the striking similarity to what is going on at the federal level.
Conservative commentators have glanced in our direction and bemoaned the death of free speech on college campuses. The Florida Federation of College Republicans lamented that our student government has used “funds for years to promote liberal speakers.”
Reality doesn’t quite match up with the assertions of those who claim to be persecuted; as I’ve written previously, the vast majority of the political speakers that our student government has brought in and paid for in the last three years are conservative. On the conservative side, the former Ohio governor, John Kasich, came to campus in January; former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and political commentator Ben Shapiro spoke in 2017. On the liberal side, we held events with Kal Penn, associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement within the Obama administration, and comedian Chelsea Handler in 2017.
For the record, we do not try to impeach our student body president after every conservative speaking event on campus. Since the University of Florida opened its doors in Gainesville in 1906, there has been only one other impeachment inquiry into a student body president; in 2009, Kevin Reilly was investigated over various concerns, including violations of the Florida Sunshine Law and conspiring to keep minority party senators out of committee seats. He was ultimately not impeached and, interestingly enough, eventually went on to work in then-Governor Scott’s administration.
The Florida G.O.P. seems to think that the impeachment inquiry is solely about inviting a member of the Trump family to campus, but that is not the case. My fellow senators and I have no qualms with free speech. This is an issue of conflicts of interest and fiscal responsibility, revolving around how $50,000 in mandatory student fees ended up going down the drain, in the direction of the swamp.
The Trump event at the University of Florida wasn’t “free speech” but instead a “$50,000 speech.” Many have framed the event as a great bargain, citing how much more money we’ve spent on other speakers, like Pitbull or Aly Raisman. I wasn’t convinced. I consider Donald Trump Jr. to be a barren banana stand in the marketplace of ideas. No one would ever mistake him for an intellectual or accomplished individual, so why pay him even close to such?
Less than two weeks after his appearance at the University of Florida, the junior Mr. Trump spoke at Grand Canyon University and Colorado State University. Last week, he was booed (by the far-right) at the University of California, Los Angeles.
None of these universities paid speaking fees or utilized student fees (though at least one, Grand Canyon University, did supply the space and pay for security); these events were organized through and paid for by the conservative group Turning Point USA, a group that also claims to have influenced student government elections all over the country, including at the University of Florida.
In a Catch-22 maneuver meant to sidestep our allegations, Mr. Murphy’s attorney has insisted that the president’s son was brought to campus to promote his book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us” — that it wasn’t a campaign event. (The book was published on Nov. 5, 26 days after his speech).
If that was the case, then shouldn’t the event have been for free? It’s not a stretch to imagine that he is already making money off his book, a No. 1 best seller, boosted by bulk purchases from the Republican National Committee.
We didn’t see $50,000 flowing to him at his other book tour stops, so why did it happen at the University of Florida?
Paying $50,000 for a speech that could have literally been a free speech is ethically questionable, especially seeing how Ms. Wren, a financial consultant for the Trump re-election campaign, was involved in setting up the speaking event — and that Michael Murphy’s lobbyist father has already maxed out his contributions to the campaign.
At the end of the day, had Donald Trump Jr. come to the University of Florida in the same way that he visited other universities, we would not be impeaching our student body president. It is the money questionably spent, conflicts of interest and shady Trump campaign collusion that are the sole ingredients in this recipe for impeachment.
Just like with the hearings in Washington, Republicans will try to pass this off as another day of partisan politics, but it’s not. This is about right and wrong, and just like our counterparts in Congress, we are taking a stand for ethical behavior in politics. We demand accountability.
Zachariah Chou (@ZachariahChou) is a student government senator at the University of Florida.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Why We’re Impeaching Our Student Body President Over Trump Jr.
Opinion | Why We’re Impeaching Our Student Body President Over Trump Jr.
On Oct. 10, Donald Trump Jr. and the former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle gave a speech at the University of Florida for $50,000 at the invitation of our student body president, Michael Murphy. Students protested, and normally that would have been the end of the story.
Instead, last week, a group of other student body senators and I initiated impeachment proceedings against Mr. Murphy over what we feel is a gross abuse of his power. In the resulting days, our campus drama has become national news, and Mr. Murphy has become a conservative martyr.
For many of his supporters, this is simply another story of campus leftists gone berserk and threatening free speech. In fact, it’s a much more complicated story, one that throws into question the use of public funds for partisan ends.
Michael Murphy has posted photos of himself on social media at President Trump’s inauguration and with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in the White House. He is the son of Dan Murphy, who works for the lobbying firm BGR Group. Dan Murphy maxed out donations to President Trump’s 2020 campaign, and is a known associate of Donald Trump Jr. The $50,000 that paid for the speaking fee came from mandatory student fees.
In response to our impeachment inquiry, the student body president hired Daniel Nordby — the one-time general counsel of former Florida governor and current senator Rick Scott — as his attorney. Mr. Scott called Murphy’s pending impeachment “shameful.” On Nov. 14 the Florida G.O.P. publicized a page on their website where supporters can add their name to support Mr. Murphy (and, one click below that, “contribute to keep America great”). That same day, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted colorful language about the Murphy impeachment inquiry and added: “Enough of this nonsense.”
After the Oct. 10 event, University of Florida alumna Mariana Castro submitted a public records request for all emails to and from Murphy concerning the invitation of the president’s son to campus. Her request returned an email thread from Caroline Wren, a veteran Republican fund-raiser. Ms. Wren works as a financial consultant for the Trump Victory Committee, a joint entity between the Trump 2020 re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee.
On Sept. 11, Ms. Wren emailed Mr. Murphy, referencing a Fourth of July meeting with him at her house. She added that she “would like to bring Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle and RNC Co-Chairman Tommy Hicks to the University of Florida.”
When our local paper, the Independent Florida Alligator, called Ms. Wren for comment on Oct. 30, she first stated that she didn’t know who Murphy was — which for sure doesn’t raise any eyebrows at all. Ms. Wren later responded via email to The Alligator, acknowledging that she and Mr. Murphy met over the summer. She insisted she had been acting in her personal capacity and that she “mistakenly forgot to remove my Trump Victory signature.”
Many people saw these emails as the smoking gun, as proof that Mr. Murphy had colluded with the Trump campaign to funnel student fees toward a partisan cause.
The emails were the final straw for me and my colleagues in the Student Government Senate.
On Nov. 12, we filed an impeachment resolution against our student body president for using student fees to advance his own expressed political beliefs and for violating our governing laws (specifically 808.12, part 5) that forbid student government funds from being used to support a political party.
And that was supposed to be it. Naturally, The Alligator reported on it. Then the Tampa Bay Times. The story continued to gather momentum, bolstered by the striking similarity to what is going on at the federal level.
Conservative commentators have glanced in our direction and bemoaned the death of free speech on college campuses. The Florida Federation of College Republicans lamented that our student government has used “funds for years to promote liberal speakers.”
Reality doesn’t quite match up with the assertions of those who claim to be persecuted; as I’ve written previously, the vast majority of the political speakers that our student government has brought in and paid for in the last three years are conservative. On the conservative side, the former Ohio governor, John Kasich, came to campus in January; former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and political commentator Ben Shapiro spoke in 2017. On the liberal side, we held events with Kal Penn, associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement within the Obama administration, and comedian Chelsea Handler in 2017.
For the record, we do not try to impeach our student body president after every conservative speaking event on campus. Since the University of Florida opened its doors in Gainesville in 1906, there has been only one other impeachment inquiry into a student body president; in 2009, Kevin Reilly was investigated over various concerns, including violations of the Florida Sunshine Law and conspiring to keep minority party senators out of committee seats. He was ultimately not impeached and, interestingly enough, eventually went on to work in then-Governor Scott’s administration.
The Florida G.O.P. seems to think that the impeachment inquiry is solely about inviting a member of the Trump family to campus, but that is not the case. My fellow senators and I have no qualms with free speech. This is an issue of conflicts of interest and fiscal responsibility, revolving around how $50,000 in mandatory student fees ended up going down the drain, in the direction of the swamp.
The Trump event at the University of Florida wasn’t “free speech” but instead a “$50,000 speech.” Many have framed the event as a great bargain, citing how much more money we’ve spent on other speakers, like Pitbull or Aly Raisman. I wasn’t convinced. I consider Donald Trump Jr. to be a barren banana stand in the marketplace of ideas. No one would ever mistake him for an intellectual or accomplished individual, so why pay him even close to such?
Less than two weeks after his appearance at the University of Florida, the junior Mr. Trump spoke at Grand Canyon University and Colorado State University. Last week, he was booed (by the far-right) at the University of California, Los Angeles.
None of these universities paid speaking fees or utilized student fees (though at least one, Grand Canyon University, did supply the space and pay for security); these events were organized through and paid for by the conservative group Turning Point USA, a group that also claims to have influenced student government elections all over the country, including at the University of Florida.
In a Catch-22 maneuver meant to sidestep our allegations, Mr. Murphy’s attorney has insisted that the president’s son was brought to campus to promote his book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us” — that it wasn’t a campaign event. (The book was published on Nov. 5, 26 days after his speech).
If that was the case, then shouldn’t the event have been for free? It’s not a stretch to imagine that he is already making money off his book, a No. 1 best seller, boosted by bulk purchases from the Republican National Committee.
We didn’t see $50,000 flowing to him at his other book tour stops, so why did it happen at the University of Florida?
Paying $50,000 for a speech that could have literally been a free speech is ethically questionable, especially seeing how Ms. Wren, a financial consultant for the Trump re-election campaign, was involved in setting up the speaking event — and that Michael Murphy’s lobbyist father has already maxed out his contributions to the campaign.
At the end of the day, had Donald Trump Jr. come to the University of Florida in the same way that he visited other universities, we would not be impeaching our student body president. It is the money questionably spent, conflicts of interest and shady Trump campaign collusion that are the sole ingredients in this recipe for impeachment.
Just like with the hearings in Washington, Republicans will try to pass this off as another day of partisan politics, but it’s not. This is about right and wrong, and just like our counterparts in Congress, we are taking a stand for ethical behavior in politics. We demand accountability.
Zachariah Chou (@ZachariahChou) is a student government senator at the University of Florida.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Read Full Article