The left will try anything to stop Trump, they know their world is evaporating, and that's a good thing...
Ethics Group Brings Bogus Constitutional Suit against President Trump
Misusing the foreign emoluments clause to fulfill the Left’s obstructionist agenda.
January 24, 2017
Joseph Klein
The left wing group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) is taking the lead in filing a lawsuit “alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments,” according to the New York Times. The Trump-haters’ tiresome efforts to delegitimize the Trump presidency goes on.
Leading funders of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics include groups affiliated with George Soros. Previously run by Hillary Clinton’s attack dog, David Brock, CREW’s chairman today is Norman Eisen, who is one of the leading lawyers on the anti-Trump case. Eisen had “bundled” donations between $200,000 and $500,000 from other contributors for Obama in 2008, for which he was rewarded with an appointment as special advisor to former President Obama for “ethics.”
The provision in the Constitution the plaintiffs are relying on to press their case, filed in the Southern District of New York, is known as the Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8), which states: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And 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.”
The plaintiffs allege that President Trump is violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause through his continuing ownership interests in Trump hotels, buildings and other real estate ventures in which foreign governments, or businesses controlled by foreign governments, are customers, tenants, lenders or business partners. President Trump, the theory goes, is illegally receiving monetary benefits from foreign states or their controlled entities without congressional consent. The lawsuit seeks a court order compelling President Trump to cease receiving such benefits.
The plaintiffs face an uphill battle. To begin with, their lawsuit may be dismissed out of hand because they lack standing to bring the suit in the first place. Standing is a legal threshold plaintiffs must meet for the court to hear their case, requiring plaintiffs to demonstrate they have suffered a direct and concrete injury as a result of the actions they are complaining about. According to the New York Times, the ACLU “hopes to find a hotel or bed-and-breakfast that might compete against a Trump hotel as a party with standing to sue.” Presumably such competitors would claim they have suffered some sort of economic injury from foreign government favoritism shown towards Trump hotels, motivated by a desire to please Mr. Trump in his presidential capacity. The so-called “competitor standing” theory may succeed in getting a lawsuit with the right plaintiffs past the courthouse door, but that is as far as they should get.
The next hurdle the plaintiffs must overcome is whether the Foreign Emoluments Clause even applies to the president of the United States and, if so, whether Congress has already given blanket consent to all presidents in terms of their business dealings, including with foreign governments and their controlled entities, when it exempted presidents and vice presidents from its conflicts of interest laws.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause refers to “Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust,” which arguably at the time was not intended to refer to elected officials in the legislative or executive branches. The same phrase “holding any Office” is used earlier in Article I, Section 6, where it is clear that such phrase refers only to appointees. It is only when the Constitution uses the term “Emolument” a second time, in the compensation clause of Article II, Section 1, that we see a specific reference to “the President.” This textural interpretation is bolstered by the fact that when Alexander Hamilton was directed by the Senate to provide a list of persons holding office under the United States and their salaries, his response included only appointed officers, not any elected persons.
Thus, both the text, and the actions of one of the Founding Fathers involved in the drafting, indicate that the plaintiffs’ suit against President Trump should be dismissed because the constitutional provision they are suing under does not apply to him.
...
If Congress believes it has not provided the requisite consent for foreign emoluments it believes is required by the Constitution and that President Trump is willfully violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause, then it is up to Congress to exercise its impeachment powers under Article II, Section 4. In the meantime, the left wingers’ lawsuit should be summarily dismissed.
Ethics Group Brings Bogus Constitutional Suit against President Trump
Ethics Group Brings Bogus Constitutional Suit against President Trump
Misusing the foreign emoluments clause to fulfill the Left’s obstructionist agenda.
January 24, 2017
Joseph Klein
The left wing group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) is taking the lead in filing a lawsuit “alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments,” according to the New York Times. The Trump-haters’ tiresome efforts to delegitimize the Trump presidency goes on.
Leading funders of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics include groups affiliated with George Soros. Previously run by Hillary Clinton’s attack dog, David Brock, CREW’s chairman today is Norman Eisen, who is one of the leading lawyers on the anti-Trump case. Eisen had “bundled” donations between $200,000 and $500,000 from other contributors for Obama in 2008, for which he was rewarded with an appointment as special advisor to former President Obama for “ethics.”
The provision in the Constitution the plaintiffs are relying on to press their case, filed in the Southern District of New York, is known as the Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8), which states: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And 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.”
The plaintiffs allege that President Trump is violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause through his continuing ownership interests in Trump hotels, buildings and other real estate ventures in which foreign governments, or businesses controlled by foreign governments, are customers, tenants, lenders or business partners. President Trump, the theory goes, is illegally receiving monetary benefits from foreign states or their controlled entities without congressional consent. The lawsuit seeks a court order compelling President Trump to cease receiving such benefits.
The plaintiffs face an uphill battle. To begin with, their lawsuit may be dismissed out of hand because they lack standing to bring the suit in the first place. Standing is a legal threshold plaintiffs must meet for the court to hear their case, requiring plaintiffs to demonstrate they have suffered a direct and concrete injury as a result of the actions they are complaining about. According to the New York Times, the ACLU “hopes to find a hotel or bed-and-breakfast that might compete against a Trump hotel as a party with standing to sue.” Presumably such competitors would claim they have suffered some sort of economic injury from foreign government favoritism shown towards Trump hotels, motivated by a desire to please Mr. Trump in his presidential capacity. The so-called “competitor standing” theory may succeed in getting a lawsuit with the right plaintiffs past the courthouse door, but that is as far as they should get.
The next hurdle the plaintiffs must overcome is whether the Foreign Emoluments Clause even applies to the president of the United States and, if so, whether Congress has already given blanket consent to all presidents in terms of their business dealings, including with foreign governments and their controlled entities, when it exempted presidents and vice presidents from its conflicts of interest laws.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause refers to “Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust,” which arguably at the time was not intended to refer to elected officials in the legislative or executive branches. The same phrase “holding any Office” is used earlier in Article I, Section 6, where it is clear that such phrase refers only to appointees. It is only when the Constitution uses the term “Emolument” a second time, in the compensation clause of Article II, Section 1, that we see a specific reference to “the President.” This textural interpretation is bolstered by the fact that when Alexander Hamilton was directed by the Senate to provide a list of persons holding office under the United States and their salaries, his response included only appointed officers, not any elected persons.
Thus, both the text, and the actions of one of the Founding Fathers involved in the drafting, indicate that the plaintiffs’ suit against President Trump should be dismissed because the constitutional provision they are suing under does not apply to him.
...
If Congress believes it has not provided the requisite consent for foreign emoluments it believes is required by the Constitution and that President Trump is willfully violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause, then it is up to Congress to exercise its impeachment powers under Article II, Section 4. In the meantime, the left wingers’ lawsuit should be summarily dismissed.
Ethics Group Brings Bogus Constitutional Suit against President Trump
