Posted on 01/04/2024 9:49:21 AM PST by bitt
House Democrats accused Trump of taking millions in foreign bribes while president after a seven-year investigation in an effort to distract from Biden’s crimes and impeachment inquiry.
Democrats, once again, accused Trump of violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
The emoluments clause is a provision that bars US presidents from accepting gifts from foreign governments without permission from Congress first.
House Democrats targeted Trump and accused him of violating the very rarely litigated emoluments clause of the US Constitution by claiming his luxury hotels which, at the time, were blocks from the White House were evidence Trump was receiving benefits.
“It is true that $7.8 million is almost certainly only a fraction of Trump’s harvest of unlawful foreign state money, but this figure in itself is a scandal and a decisive spur to action,” Ranking member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Jamie Raskin said in the 156-page report.
USA Today reported:
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a 156-page report Thursday morning accusing Trump of exploiting the presidency to financially benefit himself and members of his family. Trump’s businesses, according to the report, received at least $7.8 million from corrupt and authoritarian governments including China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The report is the culmination of a nearly seven-year investigation. It says records and documents obtained by House Oversight Democrats reveal “a stunning web of millions of dollars in payments made by foreign governments and their agents directly to Trump-owned businesses, while President Trump was in the White House.”
Among the report’s findings and records available to the committee, China made the most payments to Trump’s businesses during his tenure, spending more than $5.5 million at Trump Tower in New York and two of Trump’s hotels in Washington and Las Vegas.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
This is laughable.
“On January 11, 2017, before starting his tenure as president of the United States, Trump announced that he and his daughter Ivanka would fully resign and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric would take executive charge of the various businesses, along with Chief Finance Officer Allen Weisselberg.”
So at the time he was acting as POTUS, he neither owned or ran any businesses. However, that’s not where it stops:
“Andrew Napolitano: Can the president of the United States of America control directly or indirectly private, profit-making businesses while he or she is still in the White House? The short answer is yes! While there are many many laws in the land, federal and state, that would prevent members of Congress from doing this, members of the federal judiciary from doing in, state governors from doing it, there is no such law for the president or the vice president. So the president of the United States could construct an office building, or an apartment building, or invest in a complex in Dubai if he wanted to and still manage those investments through his children or directly, because there is no federal law regulating or prohibiting it. Potential conflicts of interests with respect to the president are a political problem, not a legal problem. Since there are no statutes or legal opinions governing the private, personal behavior of the president with respect to profit-making ventures, the president’s exposure would be political. Stated differently, if the president of the United States of America used his official power as president to make a decision in order to enhance his own wealth, he would expose himself to severe political criticisms and perhaps even impeachment, if one could argue that it rose to the level of bribery. But there is no statute prohibiting it. Now, if he could tolerate the political firestorm, no legal action would ensue.
People like the committee need to be held responsible for their actions. So if they press this issue, which is nothing more than an appearance smoke screen, then the new owners of the Donald Trump past holdings should sue the federal government for attempting to do exactly what they are accusing Trump of doing: using their position to gain worth in a business while in office. Only in this case the act of including the businesses the new owners now own is going to cut revenue from their use through slander.
It doesn’t have to be money they are gaining, it can be voter support to continue their job. Politics is a business since they have HR. But they don’t have the legal ground to use a business for political gain. That’s ponzi.
wy69
I guess they got him now!
Here we go again, these people will never stop inventing falsehoods, the worst thing for them is that if one day they find something that is true, no one will believe it.
Almost all democrats are pure evil. There are a handful of old-fashioned traditional liberals, aka Dershowitz and Jonathon Turley, but most others are rotten, IMHO.
What a stupid argument and conclusion. Of course Trump’s properties continued to make money during his presidency, but he publicly had stepped away and wasn’t running it. Were these properties to instead close to avoid generating revenue? Pretty silly.
Amazing.
ALA not aka.
Why would Trump want to distract from Biden’s crimes, and why would he take millions in bribes to do so?
I know I’m being pendantic here, but when did we stop teaching how to write clearly in schools? How about “To distract from Biden’s crimes, Dems accuse Trump of taking millions in bribes”? It really isn’t that hard and anyone writing for a living should be able to do better.
The MSM are trying to make it sound like these were gifts or even bribes, but the fact is probably that these were for services rendered, e.g., hotel rooms and office space. It is also likely that these arrangements existed before Trump was in the White House and continued after he left.
DEMOCRATS LIE AND CHEAT.
The Supreme Court rejected the emoluments suits against President Trump, as he was no longer in office, and the issue was moot. Ordered the lower court to dismiss the suits. Maybe if they hadn’t stolen the election from Trump, the watch-dog group, State of Maryland, and District of Columbia could have had their day in court. If he gets back in office, this issue will likely be raised again. They started attacking him on the emoluments issue, along with other things from the beginning of his term in office, and they haven’t stopped yet. And it’s likely they won’t stop even after he’s dead. These people are pure evil.
That’s what I told mr. mm just now.
They assume everyone behaves just like them. It also justifies themselves in their mind’s eye.
Also, they think Trump’s base are idiots enough to believe it and abandon him.
Wrong.
What it comes back to is that for all the years they have been trying dig up dirt on President Trump, they have found NOTHING. There isn’t a thing they have found to pin on him that will stick. That to me reveals a level of integrity in his business dealings that is almost non-existent.
Yeah, it’s called he hotel business.
There’s a whole world of difference between a legitimate business making money paid to it by paying customers, and bribe taking.
But the demonocrats, who have no morals or standards don’t, or won’t, understand the difference.
They have reached the point of insane and dangerous hysteria.
Also, for every dollar spent at a hotel. what is the percent that goes to expenses like upkeep and salaries. Trump Industries does not get 100%.
Also, for every dollar spent at a hotel. what is the percent that goes to expenses like upkeep and salaries. Trump Industries does not get 100%.
Funny stuff.
This trick didn’t work the first time.
Remember when Trump signed over his hotels and everything else to his son when he became President. It was on national TV.
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