President Jones Interviewed On Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper hosts President Jones on Trump’s legal cases

Bella Wyman ‘26

President Jones recently was recently interviewed by Anderson Cooper on his CNN show, “Anderson Cooper 360.” Jones, who previously served as a federal judge, was able to comment on the recent cases involving Donald Trump. 

In 2021, President Jones resigned as Chief Judge of the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania to join Dickinson College as President. His insight from his previous position allowed him to make statements regarding Trump withholding classified documents. Trump claimed they fell under the Presidential Records Act because he considered some of the files to be “personal,” meaning they should be exempt from search. Jones, however, said that “these are classified documents that are in play. They couldn’t possibly be personal.” 

Many of the documents apparently include war plans among other things that are not protected by the Presidential Records Act. According to Karen Friedman Agnifilo, the documents include national defense information and therefore fall under the Espionage Act.

Later on April 5, Jones was interviewed again regarding Trump’s efforts to get the judge ruling his hush money case, Judge Merchan, to recuse. This judge had made a prior donation of $15 to President Biden’s campaign which could show a minor lack of impartiality. President Jones said, “The fact of the matter though is that the judge has to make a determination. Can his impartiality be reasonably questioned in this case?  He’s got to try to figure out in his mind and his heart, that is Judge Merchan, whether he can sit fairly in judgment.” 

Elie Honig was interviewed alongside President Jones and is a former federal and state prosecutor. According to Honig, “The problem is [Judge Merchan] took the time to go on the internet to click over to Act Blue. He entered his credit card information, and he gave money to an effort to defeat Donald Trump and to promote Joe Biden, and I do think a reasonable person can question that.”

Judge Merchan took his donation to an ethics review board earlier last year who said it was fine, but that he didn’t have to stay on the case. He could have handed the case off  to another judge, but he chose to stay on.

If Judge Merchan were to recuse, it would cause delays in the case. President Jones said, “Everybody knows that this case is going to get convened and it’s quite clear that they don’t want the case to go to trial probably before the election, so this is one more tool in the toolbox that they could file to perhaps imped the process.”

President Jones has received some backlash on social media including LinkedIn. One person commented on the LinkedIn post Dickinson created for the interview, writing, “President Jones should practice restraint and some degree of neutrality when wadding into politically charged issues with hyper-partisan news organizations, especially when discussing topics that have no relevance to the core mission and goals of the college.” Some people were especially concerned that he was not providing equal perspectives while others say that he did a great job of exemplifying Dickinson’s Dialogue Across Differences program.