Courts Rule That Trump Violates the Constitution
On This Day In 2019
“It’s the emoluments, stupid!” This may sound dry, but it’s actually a big deal.
The emoluments clause of the Constitution prohibits the U.S. president from receiving anything of value from foreign powers. Otherwise, what’s to stop a president from trying to make some side hustle money off of the deals he’s doing on behalf of the nation?
But Trump, of course, refused to divest from his business holdings while in power, and was thus raking in foreign cash literally every day through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings, and international real estate deals.
Why is this a problem? Foreigners and government agents of all stripes felt that if they wanted to curry favor with Trump, they’d better stay in HIS hotels. And U.S. government employees often felt obliged to stay in his hotels, thus feeding money to their boss’ pocket rather than to competing private business operators.
In early 2017, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) filed suit to stop him. In the initial suit, CREW prevailed and, OTDI 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals also ruled in CREW’s favor.
He ultimately got away with it by… losing the 2020 election. Along with a similar decision in a similar case, the ruling against Trump got dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2021. Why would they do that? Well, not because they disagreed Trump was violating the Constitution. But it was for the simple reason that Trump was no longer in office…and therefore the issue was moot.
By constantly seeking to delay his court cases, Trump successfully ignored the Constitution for four years. It’s highly ironic, because many pundits speculate that the primary reason Trump is running again in ’24 is so that he can order the Justice Department to drop other pending criminal cases against him.
It’s unclear whether those earlier rulings against him could be revived if Trump were to win again in November.
Btw: The millions in revenue Trump’s hospitality businesses took in, in this way, were a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars the Trump Family and businesses have received from foreign governments and investors since he first took office.
Dive Deeper
Get the facts from the CREW website
The Brennan Center for Justice says SCOTUS missed an opportunity to plug a legal loophole