Trump Beats Congressional Democrats’ Emoluments Lawsuit

Donald Trump beat back a lawsuit by 215 congressional Democrats who say he has been violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause by profiting from foreign government spending at his Washington hotel and other properties, capping a triumphant week for the president.

A 3-0 federal appeals court in Washington on Friday said the House and Senate members lack legal standing to sue the president because they had not been injured by his alleged conduct. None of the judges was appointed to the court by Trump.

The ruling is the latest victory for Trump, who was acquitted in the Senate Wednesday on articles of impeachment brought by the Democratic-controlled House and found his opposition in disarray following their botched Iowa Caucus.

Trump addressed the ruling as he departed the White House for a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. “It’s another phony case and we won it three to nothing,” the president said.

Friday’s decision was the second by a federal appeals court throwing out an emoluments lawsuits against the president. Another appeals court allowed a third case to proceed though, potentially setting the issue up for consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Constitution bars presidents from accepting things of value, or emoluments, from foreign governments without congressional consent. The Democrats who filed the lawsuit had sought an order requiring the president to get approval to keep any profits from foreign governments and state-controlled companies.

No Injury

The appeals court overturned an earlier ruling that found the Democrats had standing because the president deprived them “of the opportunity to give or withhold their consent [to foreign emoluments], thereby injuring them in their roles as members of Congress.”

Trump opted to retain his domestic and international business holdings, including the luxury Trump International Hotel located just blocks from the White House, after winning the presidency. In lieu of divestiture, he said he was transferring control of those entities to his sons Donald Jr. and Eric and to Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.

In their lawsuit, the Democrats claimed the president has been enriched by foreign governments including those of Saudi Arabia and China.

The judges did not address Trump’s argument that profits from an ongoing business shouldn’t be considered emoluments. His family-owned company opened the Washington hotel, in a building leased from the government, a few months before the 2016 election.

U.S. Circuit Judges David Tatel, a nominee of President Bill Clinton, Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was named to the bench by George H.W. Bush and Thomas Griffith, an appointee of George W. Bush, issued the decision. They heard arguments on Dec. 9.

The court based its ruling on a 1997 Supreme Court decision that said six members of Congress lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Line Item Veto Act. The law, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, gave the president power to veto individual budget items rather than limiting the veto to an entire budget bill. It was later declared unconstitutional in a different case.

“The Members can, and likely will, continue to use their weighty voices to make their case to the American people, their colleagues in the Congress and the President himself, all of whom are free to engage that argument as they see fit,” the court said in its ruling. “But we will not -- indeed we cannot -- participate in this debate, overturning an April trial court ruling.”

A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, last year dismissed an emoluments suit filed jointly by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, though the court said in October it would rehear the case. An appeals court in New York revived a third suit in September, after a lower court dismissed it.

The case is Blumenthal v. Trump, 19-5237, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Washington).

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