Tag: emoluments clause

Trump dismisses ‘phony Emoluments Clause’ after Doral criticism

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday dismissed criticism that his since-reversed plan to host the Group of Seven (G-7) summit at his Doral property would have led to an ethics violation.

“I don’t think you people, with this phony Emoluments Clause — and by the way, I would say that it’s cost anywhere from $2 billion to $5 billion to be president,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

The Emoluments Clause prohibits elected federal officials from receiving gifts or contributions from foreign governments. Trump has repeatedly claimed the presidency has cost him billions of dollars.

View the complete October 21 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Appeals court dismisses Emoluments Clause lawsuit in win for Trump

The Hill logoThe 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Maryland and the District of Columbia alleging that President Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, finding that they did not have the standing to sue the president.

The ruling is a major win for Trump, who has frequently sought to prevent others from reviewing his private financial records.
And it’s a sign that other lawsuits alleging similar violations of the Emoluments Clause — including one brought by more than 200 Democratic members of Congress — will face an uphill battle in succeeding.

View the complete July 10 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

The framers worried about corruption. Their words may now haunt the president.

The following commentary by the Washington Post Editorial Board was posted on their website July 27, 2018:

Trump International Hotel in Washington. Credit: Astrid Riecken, The Washington Post

SET AGAINST other past and present items in President Trump’s bulging portfolio of legal problems — reported payoffs to a porn star and a former Playboy model; allegations of fraudinvolving his onetime university; charges that he defamed a woman who accused him of groping her; the ongoing criminal probe into Russia’s intervention on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election — the question of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses and whether he has violated them, is arcane. It seems a stretch to suppose that the president might be imperiled by a case that turns partly on definitions of the word “emolument” gleaned from 18th century dictionaries.

Or maybe not much of a stretch for anyone who has spent time in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel, a few blocks from the White House. There, to the tune of $40 million in revenue last year, it’s possible to glimpse just the sort of influence-peddling the framers may have intended to prohibit by those clauses.

The hotel has been the lodging of choice for an unknown (but not unknowable) number of state and foreign officials, some of whom, it is a fair bet, thereby hoped to curry favor with the president. According to the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, both Democrats, who have sued to stop it, that favor-currying falls squarely within the “emoluments” the framers meant to forbid.

View the complete commentary here.

In Ruling Against Trump, Judge Defines Anticorruption Clauses in Constitution for First Time

The following article by Sharon LaFraniere was posted on the New York Times website July 25, 2018:

Trump International Hotel in Washington. “The argument is that as president he is unduly attracting business,” the judge said of President Trump. “There is some evidence of that.” Credit: Alex Brandon/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A lawsuit accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution by maintaining a financial interest in his company’s Washington hotel cleared a critical hurdle on Wednesday when a federal judge allowed the case to move forward.

In the first judicial opinion to define how the meaning of the Constitution’s anticorruption clauses should apply to a president, Judge Peter J. Messitte of the United States District Court in Greenbelt, Md., said the framers’ language should be broadly construed as an effort to protect against influence-peddling by state and foreign governments.

He ruled that the lawsuit should proceed to the evidence-gathering stage, which could clear the way for an examination of financial records that the president has consistently refused to disclose. The Justice Department is expected to forestall that by seeking an emergency stay and appealing the ruling.

View the complete article here.

Federal judge allows emoluments case against Trump to proceed

The following article by Ann E. Marimow, Jonathan O’Connell and David Fahrenthold was posted on the Washington Post website July 25, 2018:

D.C. and Maryland are suing President Trump for violating a little-known constitutional provision called “the emoluments clause.” (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected President Trump’s latest effort to stop a lawsuit that alleges Trump is violating the Constitution by continuing to do business with foreign governments.

The ruling, from U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., will allow the plaintiffs — the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia — to proceed with their case, which says Trump has violated little-used anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution known as emoluments clauses.

This ruling appeared to mark the first time a federal judge had interpreted those constitutional provisions and applied their restrictions to a sitting president.

View the complete article here.

Judge dismisses lawsuit over Trump’s conflicts of interest — but that doesn’t mean the issue is over

The following article by Emily C. Singer was posted on the Mic.com website December 21, 2017:

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, which alleged that Trump was in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution — which bars a president from accepting gifts or money from a foreign government.

The decision, however, didn’t rule on the merits of whether Trump was in violation of the Emoluments Clause.

Rather, Judge George B. Daniels said that the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit — the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — didn’t have standing to sue. In layman’s terms, that means the judge said the people who filed the lawsuit couldn’t prove that they were specifically harmed by Trump’s alleged actions, and therefore don’t have the legal basis to file suit. Continue reading “Judge dismisses lawsuit over Trump’s conflicts of interest — but that doesn’t mean the issue is over”

Trump retains assets worth at least $1.4 billion, new disclosure shows

The following article by Matea Gold, Drew Harwell and Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website June 16, 2017:

President Trump reported on a new financial disclosure that his far-flung real estate and hotel assets are worth at least $1.4 billion, a stark illustration of the complex financial interests he has maintained in the White House.

The report, which the president voluntarily filed with the Office of Government Ethics, shows that he collected an influx of new revenue from recent foreign deals and a surge of business at his signature Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Continue reading “Trump retains assets worth at least $1.4 billion, new disclosure shows”