‘Emoluments’ Challenge To Donald Trump’s Ethics Conflicts Gets A Big Boost

People can allege that the moon is made out of green cheese. That does not make their allegation a concrete particularized injury. The people pursuing this look even more ridiculous than the clerk who refused to issue gay people marriage licenses after being ordered to do so. They are not even asking for damages. It is a little hard to claim you have been illegally harmed without being able to quantify the harm. The remedy they are allegedly seeking shows on its face this is a nuisance lawsuit

 

Let me know when you have something substantive to contribute.

 

It was substantive.

huffpo is not

 

“no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, 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.”

So far Emolument has not been clarified by any court case and can be dismissed by Consent of Congress which is now Republican. Normal business profits do not apply as they would be the same before or after. The Plaintiffs will have to show damage which in and of itself may be hard to do without showing someone actually backing out of a deal to stay at a Trump property.

 

I think you mean that the remedy that they are seeking is a type of injunctive relief - not a nuisance. And it is entirely possible that the complaint could be amended to seek monetary damages with the new plaintiffs joining the case.

 

This is actually your issue, you are trying to make the SC partisan. Hopefully, since they are there for decades, they reflect independence to the constitution and not party.

 

Does the lawsuit exist? Is it being led by ethics attorneys from the Obama and Bush administration? Does the lawsuit allege a violation of the Emoluments Clause? Does the Emoluments Clause exist? Did the lawsuit get amended to reflect new plaintiffs?

Now please, contribute to the conversation or move on.

 

All very fair points, although I would note that the Consent of Congress exception is unlikely to help as a defense in this situation because Trump can obtain gifts from and through so many of his business entities that going to Congress for explicit approval each time would be laughable.

 

You've got nothing, but desperation. Scotus has NEVER applied the clause to the president, and every 3 year old with a google search bar knows this.

President George Washington publicly received gifts from French officials and never sought, nor was granted permission from Congress as no one applied the clause to the President. Your unsupported claim that your understanding today of the who is covered is clearly one that differs from those present at the drafting and ratification of the US Constitution.

I wonder if Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton understood anything about the constitution, given that he helped write it!?! His 90 page list, submitted to the Senate ‘every’ person holding ‘office … under the United States’ included every appointed officer, including those in the legislature, such as the Clerk of the House, but excluded elected officials such as the President, Vice President, and members of Congress.

 

I'm not sure how you can say that. The point of the Emoluments Clause was to prevent the President from essentially being bribed by foreign governments. I'm sure the Founders never envisioned a president who owns hotels and resorts around the world, but the point of the law clearly applies. What is the functional difference between bribing a president directly, and simply making a point of assisting his business interests?

Will the argument succeed? I'm not sure. This is, indeed, uncharted territory, because we have never had a president with international business interests like Trump. But it seems obvious to me that the Clause does and should apply to things like this.

 

Every President from 1970 forward has divested or placed their business interests in a blind trust, it's a moral standard that meets the values of a free constitution based society . Trump has not come close to this period. It will be tested over and over and he will eventually be found in breach of the spirit of the constitution. It will likely cost a fortune and time but it will be tested to the limit.

 

There isn't, because we've never had a President like this one, with international business interests.

Do a little more research. Is the Nobel awarded by a foreign government? No. So the Emoluments Clause doesn't apply.

Further, what did they do with the prize money? Congress has already decided it is legal to accept gifts as long as the money (or fair market value) is not kept.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOD...partIII-subpartF-chap73-subchapIV-sec7342.htm

That is what Obama did: the prize money was donated to charity. Just as previous recipients have done.

 

LOL not I am not. This is political nonsense and the SCOTUS doesn't get into purely political issues. The DNC crowd's reading of the constitution on this is beyond the pale. Guess what--"marketing advantage" is not going to be seen as a "gift" under any reading of the Constitution even if this case got to the merits, which it won't.

 

OK, if you now want to pivot away from the comment that I responded to, then fine. Rest assure, the Trump admin will be in court from this moment forward as the cases like this will just keep coming.

 

Of course, it is the democrats way of trying to win instead of accepting defeat.

 

So far the only 'gift' is the complaint that other hotels are suffering due to Trump being President.

 

No, that's the harm, but I know what you mean. You could also consider the Chinese trademarks as a gift as well.

 

Yep, he is open to attack from all side on this.

 

It seems to me that a foreign government choosing a Trump hotel is a gift.

I am quite sure that there are some countries / governments that will specifically choose to stay in a Trump hotel, and then let Donald know about it as a way to curry favor with him. And how will he feel about the governments that meet with him in DC and choose NOT to stay in his hotel?

He could have made this really simple by having a policy that his hotels would not accept bookings from foreign dignitaries. But he didn't do that because he specifically wants to use the office of the presidency to line his own pockets. That is the primary reason he ran for the office.

 

You have to love the hypocrisy of some of these people. They were all up in arms about Hillary's "corruption" because some governments contributed to the Clinton Foundation while Clinton was running the State Department -- and that in some cases, the State Department (shock!) conducted business with those governments during that time.

Never mind that the donations were fully disclosed, and that the business in question (things like buying a building in Qatar for State Department offices) was handled by the usual low-level employees with no input from Clinton, nor were the transactions controversial in any way. That was the very HEIGHT of evil, self-dealing corruption.

Now these same people don't care that the President is PERSONALLY PROFITING from foreign transactions, and because he has disclosed neither his tax returns nor the full extent of his property ownership, we have NO IDEA how much he is being paid, and by whom.

Further, he has refused to sell his assets or place them in a blind trust.

What Trump is doing is objectively ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE worse than anything Hillary was accused of. And they don't care.

Hypocrites.

 

Turning a blind eye to partizan hypocrisy is unpatriotic and immoral. It's just plain stupid.

 

The donations were not fully disclosed, they were lumped into one donation so the country it came from could be hidden.

 

How much does it take to bribe a billionaire ??

 

Incorrect. The donating countries were fully identified, and their total donations reported in ranges. Qatar, for instance, was reported to have made total donations of between $1 million and $5 million.

I agree that specific donations should have been reported, not just ranges. But it was always clear who was donating to the Clinton Foundation, and roughly how much.

And all of that is still not even CLOSE to what Trump is doing. Yet you're fine with Trump's corruption. Why?

 

More money and power.