Former President Donald Trump indicted

BY BRYN HEALY ’24 NEWS EDITOR

Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury on March 30, 2023, making him the first current president or former president to be indicted for a crime. He was arraigned on April 4 for 34 charges, according to CBS News. Each of the felony charges against him has a maximum sentence of four years, according to POLITICO.

The State of New York indictment charged the former president of having “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects [from Aug. 2015 to Dec. 2017].” To achieve this, Trump is accused of violating election laws, creating false business records, fraudulent tax identification and more. Part of this included hush money payments to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels and the payment of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen.

In 2016, Trump hired Michael Cohen to pay off Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged affair. Trump and his organization allegedly falsely classified the money they paid and attempted to cover the situation up, according to The New York Times. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for the same payment in 2018. At the time, according to NBC, Cohen blamed Trump and his loyalty to the then-president for causing him to “choose darkness over light.”

Assistant Professor of Politics Joanna Wuest explained the significance of this moment. “When Richard Nixon’s aides were indicted in 1974 and a grand jury considered indicting the president himself, it wasn’t long before the president resigned from office, essentially disappearing from national party leadership.”

“With Trump, it remains very possible that the indictment might benefit him politically on the 2024 campaign trail,” Wuest continued, “given the former president’s consistent claims that corrupt elites are attempting to stifle his so-called populist struggle for power.”

Former Vice President Mike

Pence released a statement, as described by the Hill. “The unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage. And it appears to millions of Americans to be nothing more than a political prosecution that’s driven by a prosecutor who literally ran for office on a pledge to indict the former president.”

“Well, we’re in uncharted waters here, and there’s still a lot we don’t know,” Adam Hilton, a Mount Holyoke assistant professor of politics, explained. “Never before has a former U.S. president been indicted on criminal charges, and the details of the charges have yet to be unsealed.

But, whatever the merits of this particular case, and there are additional, likely more serious indictments pending, the indictment marks a historic turning point in American politics. Even before the Trump presidency, the U.S. constitutional regime has been beset by rule-bending and norm-breaking behavior. Now, another norm has been broken. What we don’t know yet is whether this breach of tradition will further erode the stability of our democracy or potentially help strengthen it.”

Trump pleaded not guilty to all the counts and will remain in his resort at Mar-A-Lago until the December trial. The former president, according to The Guardian, is still under three other legal investigations and a defamation trial. Being indicted has no impact on Trump’s ability to run in the 2024 presidential election as a candidate.

Mount Holyoke German and Russian departments to be placed on ‘sunset’ timeline

BY MAVIS XU ’26 AND SOPHIE SOLOWAY ’23 STAFF WRITER | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

On Thursday, March 30, students and faculty gathered in the Language and Culture Commons in Ciruti Language Center for the German and Russian & Eurasian Studies department teas. Following statements from students and alums speaking in support of the two departments, Provost and Dean of Faculty Lisa Sullivan announced that the College had adopted a plan to ‘sunset’ the two language departments over the next few years.

In a statement to Mount Holyoke News, Sullivan confirmed that “at present the only announcement is that the faculty will take up a motion regarding the retirement of German and Russian majors and minors over the next four years.”

According to Karen Remmler, the chair of the German Studies department, “The German studies department as well as the Russian and Eurasian studies departments will remain in place for four years, if and when the faculty decide to terminate the major/minor, as well as close