Ethics lawsuit to be filed Monday against President Trump
A team of former White House ethics lawyers, prominent constitutional lawyers and Supreme Court litigators will be filing a lawsuit on Monday morning against President Trump. The suit is alleging that Donald Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution by allowing his businesses including hotels, golf courses and other businesses to accept payments from foreign governments.
The suit being brought against Trump contends that he is in violation of the Emoluments Clause, which specifically prohibits the president from receiving “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”
According to the New York Times, “The suit, which will not seek any monetary damages, will ask a federal court in New York to order Mr. Trump to stop taking payments from foreign government entities. Such payments, it says, include those from patrons at Trump hotels and golf courses, as well as loans for his office buildings from certain banks controlled by foreign governments, and leases with tenants like the Abu Dhabi tourism office, a government enterprise.”
One of the lawyers that are part of the suit told the Times, “The framers of the Constitution were students of history. And they understood that one way a republic could fail is if foreign powers could corrupt our elected leaders.”
Trump’s businesses have wide-spread connections with foreign governments which present a constitutional crisis allowing foreign governments the opportunity to give Trump unconstitutional gifts through his businesses. For example, a Chinese bank that is controlled by the Chinese government rents office space in Trump Tower.
Another recent example is that the Embassy of Kuwait moved an event from the Four Seasons hotel to a hotel owned by Trump “after members of the Trump Organization pressured the ambassador to hold the event at the hotel owned by the president-elect.”
The New York Times piece went on saying:
The legal team filing the lawsuit includes Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard constitutional scholar; Norman L. Eisen, an Obama administration ethics lawyer; and Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. Among the others are Richard W. Painter, an ethics counsel in the administration of George W. Bush; Mr. Gupta, a Supreme Court litigator who has three cases pending before the court; and Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor and former congressional candidate who has been studying and writing about the Emoluments Clause for nearly a decade.
Ms. Teachout said the one place of potential concern is a nation like China, which rents space at Trump Tower in New York and is a major lender to an office building in New York that he controls in part.
Foreign governments, Ms. Teachout and other ethics expert warn, could rent out rooms in Trump hotels as a way to send a message to the Trump family. “If you think other countries are not going to try to leverage relationships with Trump’s companies to influence trade or military policy, that is naïve,” she said.
Using the lawsuit to get copy of Trump tax returns
Part of the legal strategy by the group is to use the lawsuit to try to get a copy of Donald Trump’s tax returns which according to the plaintiffs is required to properly determine whether Donald Trump has received money from foreign governments.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
ACLU also likely to file suit against Donald Trump
The New York Times also reports that ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information Act on “Thursday asking the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the Office of Government Ethics for all legal opinions and memos they have prepared addressing potential financial or ethical conflicts that Mr. Trump might face. It could perhaps use those documents in litigation against the Trump administration.”
The ACLU’s executive director Anthony Romero said it was also looking for potential plaintiffs to file Emoluments Clause lawsuits against Donald Trump.
