Immediately after acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney announced Thursday that President Donald Trump’s Doral golf club will host next year’s G7 summit, Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano declared such a move represents a clear emoluments clause violation.
During Thursday’s broadcast of Fox Business Network’s Cavuto: Coast to Coast, eponymous host Neil Cavuto noted that the announcement of the G7 location “is effectively saying the president has given himself this contract.”
Pointing out that previous summits in the United States took place at Camp David and Sea Island, Cavuto said the White House is arguing that holding the event at the president’s property is not a violation of the emoluments clause.
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“I believe the judge has a different notion of that,” Cavuto added, turning to Napolitano.
“It’s not my notion,” the judge replied. “It’s the Constitution’s notion. The Constitution does not address profits, it addresses any present, as in a gift, any emolument as in cash of any kind whatever. I’m quoting the emoluments clause, from any king, prince or foreign state.”
Explaining that this wouldn’t be an issue if this were a meeting of U.S. government officials, Napolitano once again stated that the emoluments clause is to prevent the president from receiving gifts or cash from foreign entities.
“He has bought himself an enormous headache now with the choice of this,” he continued. “This is about as direct and profound a violation of the emoluments clause as one could create.”
Cavuto, meanwhile, went on to say that there will also be a “spillover effect,” asserting that the Doral resort will become a greater attraction in the future because it hosted the international summit.
Napolitano, who in recent months has assessed that the president has engaged in numerous unethical and criminal activities, observed that this is “exactly what the emoluments clause was written to prohibit.”
