Judge Says Trump Can Absolutely Be Sued For Profiting Off The Presidency

Recently, a district court in New York threw out an emoluments clause lawsuit against the President, but last week a 2nd Circuit Panel said that the lawsuit is back on. This is bad news for Trump, as he has failed to fully divest from his businesses and is raking in millions of dollars from his companies on the backs of American taxpayers. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Recently, a district court in the state of New York threw out an emoluments clause lawsuit against Donald Trump, arguing that the plaintiffs in the case did not have standing. They were not specifically harmed by the president taking money from foreign governments and even from American citizens that wasn't hurting the plaintiffs at all. The district court ruled, well last week in a little notice story, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the state of New York said, oh, no, no, no, no, no district court. These people absolutely do have standing and we're going to re-instate this emoluments clause lawsuit against the president of the United States. This is a huge leap forward in these emoluments lawsuits right now. There's three separate emoluments clause lawsuits happening in the United States. The other two were still going forward. It was just this one that had been thrown out and has now been reinstated, and here's what the issue is. As we've talked a lot about emoluments in the form of foreign dignitaries and whoever coming and staying at Trump's hotels, they pay money to stay there. That money goes to the Trump organization profits. The profits go back into Donald Trump's pockets. That's in an emolument, that is illegal, but there's also domestic emoluments, which is essentially the same thing. If an average American citizen decides to waste their money spending a night in Trump's hotel, that money goes through the same cycle back to the organization in the form of revenue down into Trump's pocket. Eventually. That's a domestic emoluments and that is one of the things, this particular lawsuit is focusing on some of the other ones focusing more on the foreign ones, but it's the domestic ones where he's really raking in the money. Here is what these judges had to say. In this opinion, the president's establishment offer government patrons something that plaintiffs cannot the opportunity by enriching the president to obtain favorable governmental treatment from the president and the executive branch. And that is why they're saying no, these people do have standing because they are put at a disadvantage in terms of getting a favor from the president compared to somebody who can afford to go and be a patron of the president's businesses. And that's absolutely true. We've all heard the stories of how he's got these a wealthy folks down at Mar-a-lago, uh, who are not in the government at all by the way, but he's consulting with them about policy. So they get to have his ear just because they have money and that money goes back into Trump's pocket. So technically everybody in this country that's not a member of Mar-a-lago, that's not a member of Bedminster, that's not staying at one of Trump's hotels and never has. Uh, we could also potentially be claimants here if this were to make it into a class action. So just something to kind of keep on the horizon folks, uh, because yes, we are all at the same disadvantage. But here's the thing, and I love explaining this because it is so disgusting. Donald Trump did not divest from his companies. He did put his own personal money into a blind trust that he has an executer for. Unfortunately, that happens to be Donald Trump jr and Trump jr has to get daddy's permission, or excuse me, Trump has to get don junior's permission in order to see how the money's doing and see where he's putting it, and then make advice, give advice, excuse me. So yeah, that's not exactly a blind trust. When

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