CEDARVILLE, Greene County — The conviction of former President Donald Trump for falsifying business records prompted a well-known area political scientist to shake his head and respond with one word when asked for his reaction to the New York jury’s finding of guilty on all 34 felony criminal counts.
“I think shocked is really the word to use,” Mark Caleb Smith, director of Cedarville University’s Center for Political Studies, told News Center 7′s Gabrielle Enright via Zoom on Thursday night.
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“Not that he was found guilty necessarily,” the professor said, “but the fact that we have a former president of the United States who’s now a convicted felon, is shocking.”
America has a lot of bumpy episodes in its history, he said, but never a former president found guilty in a criminal case: “It’s new territory.”
If people think they know what’s going to happen next, they’re just pretending, Smith said.
Before Trump is sentenced at a hearing scheduled for July 11, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has a lot of decisions to make based on the aggravating circumstances of the case, Trump’s behavior in the courtroom, his approach to the gag order and his repeated violations of that order.
From a political perspective, Smith said he suspects the verdict won’t move the needle much among voters. Each candidate has his loyal supporters and even in prison, Trump could run for the presidency from a jail cell. There is nothing legally or constitutionality that prevents it.
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Smith, to offer an example of voter loyalty, recalled James Traficant, a Democratic member of the U.S. House from Ohio (1985-2002) who was convicted in 1983 on felony charges that included taking bribes and forcing his staff to perform chores on his farm in Ohio. Traficant was elected to Congress in 1984, then charged and convicted a second time in April 2002 and expelled from the House in July 2002. He served a seven-year sentence. He died in 2014 following a tractor accident on his farm in Green Twp., Ohio.
People should care about the Trump case because it is a test case for America and its institutions. Trump has the right to appeal his conviction and has said he will do so. There are more layers to go in this case, Smith said, noting the case is far from over.
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“Do we believe in the rule of law, the judicial system, how the law works?” Smith asked rhetorically.
From a citizen’s perspective, America should care about Trump’s legal standing because there is a sizeable chunk of the electorate that cares how they view him as a political candidate.
“It’s going to be interesting to watch it unfold” as a citizen and as a political scientist, Smith said.