The student body president at the University of Florida is facing impeachment after he used student fees to book Donald Trump Jr. and Trump campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle to campus.
The student body president, Michael Murphy, was served with a formal resolution for his impeachment on Tuesday afternoon for agreeing to pay the duo $50,000 for the event, which took place last month, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The resolution had more than 100 students and alumni signatures on it.
Those who are pushing for Murphy’s impeachment argue that using the student fees to pay Trump and Guilfoyle was a misuse of funds because they are now allowed to use that money to support or oppose a “political party at any level.” They point to Murphy’s correspondence with a Trump fundraising consultant as evidence that he was trying to plan and promote the event for partisan reasons, which was first reported by the university’s student paper, The Alligator.
“By using student fees to advance his own expressed political beliefs at the expense of the … Student Government writ large, Mr. Murphy not only endangered students marginalized by the speakers’ 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 states.
Murphy has also faced scrutiny for his political leanings and how that played a role in his actions. He has posted photos on social media at Trump events in Washington, D.C., and his father, Dan Murphy, donated $5,600 to Trump’s campaign this year.
He has maintained that the event was not a campaign event, thus not violating any rules, and has pointed out that he tried getting Sen. Bernie Sanders to speak on campus, but he declined.
