Eagleton Institute of Politics Experts Available to Discuss Donald Trump’s Third Indictment

John Farmer, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, and Robert Kaufman, a distinguished professor of political science at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, are available to comment on the latest indictment of Donald Trump.

The following quotes are available for pick-up:

John Farmer

“The latest federal indictment of former President Trump is as significant for what it does not charge as for what it does.  In accusing the former president of obstructing the congressional process for transitioning power, conspiring to defraud the government, and conspiring to deprive the rights of others, the Special Counsel has avoided charging him with what the January 6 select committee clearly preferred: conspiracy to cause an insurrection, a charge that would have disqualified Trump, if convicted, from seeking elective office. That would have been an exceedingly difficult charge to prove, and would have reinforced the former president’s narrative that such charges would themselves have been an assault on democracy.  In my view, the charges in this indictment reflect the exercise of sound prosecutorial discretion. They do, however, raise the question: What took so long?” 

Ashley Koning

“In the short term, this latest indictment against former President Trump will simply rally his most ardent supporters, which makes up more than a third of all Republicans.  Trump’s mounting legal issues in the past several months have often given him a subsequent bump in primary polling, and his strongest competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, remains a distant second. But partisans across the board have taken the events of January 6th seriously since the beginning, and while Republicans’ views have become more complicated and divided on the issue over time, recent polling shows that an increasing number of Republicans view Trump’s involvement negatively. Piling indictments may eventually spell trouble for Trump in general with the kinds of voters he needs most: Independents and the quarter of Republicans who want anyone but him.”

Robert Kaufman

“The indictment of Donald Trump for disrupting the peaceful transfer of power in 2021 carries with it the risk of deepening the political polarization that afflicts our society. But a failure to hold him legally accountable would pose an even greater risk to American democracy, by allowing an attack on free elections to go unpunished.”