Your Turn gives Beast Inside members a chance to weigh in with questions and perspectives about what’s happening in the news for a chance to be published on the homepage. Thank you to member Beth Johnston for this week’s question on whether any business-related lawsuits are currently threatening President Trump and his family.
Why are there not lawsuits against Trump and his family? I see things about how he has violated the emoluments clause (foreign diplomats paying premium prices in his hotel, for example), his family has benefited from special deals with foreign countries, etc., and yet nothing seems to be happening. Is he bulletproof? I would have thought that there’d be lawsuits against him, but nothing seems to be happening… Or maybe there is action that we don’t see?
There have indeed been lawsuits against President Trump that claim his continued ownership of a hotel business violates the emoluments clauses in the Constitution. You may not have noticed it, however, because they’ve been moving at the speed of federal courts, which is quite slow.
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While each suit states its claims somewhat differently, they revolve around the same fundamental argument. Trump continues to maintain an ownership stake in his various businesses, including the hotels he owns across the country and in Washington, D.C. His D.C. hotel, in particular, has become a hot spot for domestic political supplicants and foreign diplomats visiting Washington while seeking favors and the good graces of the Trump administration.
This, the plaintiffs say, violates the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution because the money they earn represents an “emolument.” The foreign emoluments clause says that no federal office holder shall accept “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind” from foreign officials. In addition, the lawsuits argue the business represents a violation of the domestic emoluments clause, which forbids the president from receiving “any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them” other than his official salary. Both provisions were designed to insulate the federal government from the corrupting influence of money, whether foreign or domestic.
So far two sets of notable plaintiffs have sued based on the emoluments clauses.
The first, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Washington, D.C., watchdog group, sued Trump in January 2017, alleging that his personal businesses violated constitutional prohibitions against corruption. In its suit, CREW alleged that Trump’s businesses were “creating countless conflicts of interest, as well as unprecedented influence by foreign governments, and have resulted and will further result in numerous violations” of the foreign emoluments clause as well as violations of the domestic emoluments clause.
Unfortunately for CREW, a Manhattan federal judge tossed its suit in December 2017 on the grounds that, as a private organization, it lacked the standing to sue. Judge George B. Daniels wrote in his decision that “the Foreign Emoluments Clause makes clear that Congress, and Congress alone, has the authority to consent to violations of that clause”—not private groups like CREW.
A second group of plaintiffs, attorneys general for the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia, has launched a similar lawsuit to CREW’s. The suit alleges that Trump’s ownership of his hotel in Washington, D.C., “renders him deeply enmeshed with a legion of foreign and domestic government actors” and “violates the Constitution and calls into question the rule of law and the integrity of the country's political system.”
The D.C. and Maryland lawsuit has fared better thus far. Judge Peter Messitte of Maryland’s District Court rejected the argument put forward in the CREW case that only Congress can address violations of the emoluments clauses. In the case of domestic emoluments clause, Messitte argued that states have a right to pursue violations “directly and Congress has nary a say about it.” In the case of the foreign emoluments clause, he ruled “this Court holds that it may review the actions of the President to determine if they comply with the law.”
D.C. and Maryland’s suit is still moving forward. Just last week, the attorneys general moved to request any communications between Trump and foreign officials mentioning his Washington hotel as well as business records from it. Don’t expect for a decision anytime soon, though. The emoluments clauses are relatively untested constitutional ground, and federal courts tend to be glacial even on more prosaic legal matters.
