Tag: Trump abuse of the U.S. Constitution

Trump Retweets Son Eric’s Promo Of Their D.C. Hotel, Infuriating His Former Ethics Chief

“Definitely not trying to profit off the presidency at all,” Walter Shaub noted sarcastically.

President Donald Trump on Sunday retweeted a message from his son Eric touting the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

The double promotion with White House clout occurred at the same time that the Trump family is slamming Hunter Biden for allegedly profiting from father Joe Biden’s role as vice president by serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

The retweet infuriated Walter Shaub, former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics for former President Barack Obama and Trump. “Definitely not trying to profit off the presidency at all,” Shaub noted sarcastically.

View the complete November 17 article by Mary Papenfuss on the Huffington Post website here.

Appeals court clears way for Congress to seek Trump financial records

The Hill logoThe federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ruled that House Democrats can obtain President Trump‘s financial records, setting up a potential Supreme Court challenge.

The circuit court judges declined a request from Trump to have the court’s full bench of judges hear the case after a three-judge panel in October denied Trump’s request to shield his longtime accounting firm Mazars from having to comply with lawmakers’ subpoena for records.

The judges voted 8 to 3 against rehearing the case. Those in the majority included seven judges appointed by Democrats, including Chief Judge Merrick Garland, and one Republican appointee, Judge Thomas B. Griffith. The dissenters were all Republican appointees.

View the complete November 13 article by John Kruzel and Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Republicans used to ignore Trump’s resorts. Now they’re spending millions.

After Trump launched his presidential campaign, GOP spending at his businesses has soared.

In 2017, Sen. Steve Daines’ campaign dropped $281 at Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas. The following year, the Iowa Republican Party paid $945 for rooms at a Trump resort in Miami. And four months later, Protect the House, which funnels money to House Republicans, spent $154,500 to rent out part of the Trump hotel in Washington.

In total, nearly 200 campaigns and political groups — virtually all conservative — have spent more than $8 million at President Donald Trump’s resorts and other businesses since his election in 2016, according to a yet-to-be-released report from the liberal-leaning consumer rights group Public Citizen obtained by POLITICO.

That wasn’t the case before the real estate mogul and reality TV star got into politics.

View the complete November 11 article by Anita Kumar on the Politico website here.

Records reveal the staggering amount of money Trump-owned businesses have raked in by doing business with Trump’s campaign and Republicans

AlterNet logoThe words “conflict of interest” often come up in connection with President Donald Trump, who hasn’t been shy about encouraging the use of Trump properties for political events. And an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows just how profitable that encouragement has been for the president.

HuffPost’s Mary Papenfuss reports that according to the Center’s analysis of federal election spending records, Trump’s political campaigns and associated committees have spent roughly $16.8 million at his businesses since he launched his 2016 presidential campaign. The analysis was based on spending reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

In the 2020 election cycle alone, the Center for Responsive Politics notes, Republican campaigns and political action committees have spent $1.8 million at Trump properties. That $1.8 million, includes — among other things — $1.3 million spent by Trump’s campaign, $123,000 spent by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and $104,000 spent by the political action committee (PAC) Great America.

View the complete October 29 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

It’s Trump against the Constitution — and only one can win

AlterNet logoThe day after Trump’s own top diplomat in Ukraine gave smoking gun bombshell testimony that should be the end of his tenure in the Oval Office, a gang of Republican congressmen tried to create a distraction by staging a hissy fit that violated national security protocols. The depth of their fraudulent attack on the impeachment process was readily apparent, as more than a quarter of the Republican congressmen who stormed the secure impeachment hearing are themselves members of relevant committees authorized to have attended. They could have complied with protocols, protected national security, and just walked in without any drama at all.

This is where we are. This is how corrupt and dangerous Republicans have become. In congressional testimony, acting ambassador William Taylor confirmed that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into smearing a potential Trump political opponent in exchange for security assistance that had been authorized by Congress, and a personal meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The attempted extortion had been going on for months. Asking, much less demanding, a foreign nation to damage the political standing of a domestic political rival is illegal in itself. It is an impeachable offense at face value. Continue reading “It’s Trump against the Constitution — and only one can win”

What I’ve Learned Staking Out Trump’s Washington Hotel

Why are the Trumps worried about increasing scrutiny of the hotel? I have a few ideas.

The Trump family is reportedly exploring a sale of the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C., partly out of concerns raised by ethics watchdogs and emoluments lawsuits that the president is profiting off of his presidency. The Trumps are right to be (belatedly) worried. I know the Trump Hotel D.C. pretty well, and I feel confident saying there is plenty more where those red flags came from.

My daily look at who is patronizing the president’s D.C. hotel started as research in July 2017 for what became one sentence in a 5,500-word feature for Condé Nast Traveler. A few minutes on Instagram revealed that if you had concerns about the U.S. president doubling as a hotelier, they were well-founded. I found photos of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R–Calif.) crashing a Vapor Technology Association’s conference; a guest posing with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, captioning her photo, “He’s still calling the shots”; and the president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani enjoying a cigar in a wine-stained tux the night of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s wedding. Lawmakers, lobbying groups and would-be powerbrokers were taking full advantage of the chance to better their lot by throwing a few bucks the president’s way.

More than two years later, I haven’t stopped scrolling through photos from the Trump Hotel D.C. For two years, I’ve read through every Instagram, Facebook and Twitter post geo-located to the Trump Hotel D.C. I’ve also made several visits and done some more sleuthing around the internet, then published my findings, first on a Twitter thread and now in a newsletterthat comes out five days a week.

View the complete October 25 article by Zach Everson on the Politico website here.

Ex-Ethics Chief: Officials Who Defend Trump Are Waging ‘War on Democracy’

“We are in dangerous territory,” Walter Shaub cautioned in a lengthy Twitter thread.

The former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on Friday used a lengthy Twitter thread to warn about the people in positions of power who continue to defend President Donald Trump’s “indefensible” actions.

“Rather than risking a short-term political defeat, these anti-patriots wage war on democracy itself,” wrote Walter Shaub in the first of 11 tweets. “We are in dangerous territory.”

Shaub, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama and quit after serving during the first six months of the Trump administration, listed a slew of examples of Trump’s alleged ethics violations to back up his claim.

View the complete October 26 article by Lee Moran on the Huffington Post website here.

Trump hotel lease is subject of latest House subpoena

Panel demands legal records, communications, profit statements for business

Another House committee on Thursday issued a subpoena for an investigation of the Trump administration — this time demanding documents related to the federal government’s lease of the historic Old Post Office building in Washington to the president’s hotel business.

The subpoena from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and signed by its chairman, Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., demands that the General Services Administration produce documents including legal records, communications between it and Trump and his children, as well as profit statements for the business, the Trump International Hotel.

The committee is investigating whether Trump’s investment in the hotel, located blocks from the White House, violates the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Trump has refused to divest from his financial interests in the building, which one of his companies began leasing in August 2013. Trump is the sole beneficiary of a trust with the controlling interest in Trump Old Post Office LLC, according to the committee.

View the complete October 24 article by Jessica Wehrman on The Roll Call website here.

The Text and History of the Foreign Emoluments Clause

NOTE:  This is the second post regarding the U.S. Constitution’s emolluments clausees.  This post discusses the foreign emolluments clause regarding accepting anything of value from a foreign government.

America’s Founders believed that corruption and foreign influence were among the gravest threats to our nation. As a result, they included in our Constitution the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Written in sweeping and unqualified language, the Clause was designed to prevent these two evils from affecting the federal government. This document explores the text and history of the Clause, providing statements from the Founders themselves and the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel,which among other things provides “legal advice to the Executive Branch on all constitutional questions.”1

Text of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8.

“No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Continue reading “The Text and History of the Foreign Emoluments Clause”