Posted on 01/04/2024 9:27:55 PM PST by NoLibZone
A federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legality of payments to President Donald Trump’s hotels by foreigners during his tenure in the White House.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that Maryland and the District of Columbia do not have legal standing to claim that Trump violated the so-called emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Trump still faces a similar lawsuit in Washington federal court filed by Democratic members of Congress.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legality of payments to President Donald Trump’s hotels by foreigners during his tenure in the White House.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit unanimously ruled that the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia do not have legal standing to sue under a claim that Trump violated the so-called emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.
That clause, contained in Article 1 of the Constitution, bars government officeholders from accepting gifts from foreign officials.
Trump still faces a similar lawsuit in Washington federal court filed by Democratic members of Congress.
On Monday, the Justice Department urged the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss that second suit.
In its ruling, the 4th Circuit appeals panel said that Washington and Maryland’s interest in enforcing that clause “is so attenuated and abstract” that it raises the question of whether their lawsuit is an appropriate use of the court system.
The suit was the first ever to claim a president violated the emoluments clause, and the appeals panel said “not only is this suit extraordinary, it also has national significance and is of special consequence.”
The panel ordered a federal district court judge in Maryland to dismiss the suit against Trump with prejudice, which would bar the plaintiffs from relaunching the case.
That judge had earlier denied Trump’s bids to toss out the case, which led the president to appeal his decision to the 4th Circuit.
Trump quickly crowed about the 4th Circuit’s decision on Twitter.
Tweet
The president’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, called the ruling “a complete victory.”
The attorneys general for Washington and Maryland issued a joint statement saying they believed the appellate judges “got it wrong.”
“Although the court described a litany of ways in which this case is unique, it failed to acknowledge the most extraordinary circumstance of all: President Trump is brazenly profiting from the Office of the President in ways that no other President in history ever imagined and that the founders expressly sought—in the Constitution—to prohibit,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine.
The two said they will “pursue our legal options,” but did not name specific next steps.
They can ask the entire 4th Circuit to review the panel’s ruling, or can escalate the matter to the Supreme Court, which has discretion over which cases it hears.
There is a good chance that they will ask the full court to review the decision, according to Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond Law School and an expert on federal judicial selection.
“I think a majority of the court is more moderate, or even liberal, compared to this panel, which is the most conservative panel you could draw of those 15 judges on this court,” Tobias said. “I guess we will see something different out of the D.C. Circuit, but who knows.”
The judges on the 4th Circuit panel that heard the case were Paul Niemeyer, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, Dennis Shedd, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, and Trump appointee A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr.
My understanding is that he could take the costs, as long as he did not keep the profit as President.
Good re-post. Obviously the RAT’s bogus focus on Trump’s earnings from his business ventures is just a ‘What about Trump’ exercise to evade questions about Hunter and ‘the Big Guy.’
Just like liberals to attack someone for having a legitimate business and making money as opposed to sleazy democrat politicians that do nothing but take bribes and pay offs. Swamp doesn’t like regular working Americans, but they do like their money
The media ONLY reported this today because they were furious Trump was not named as a scumbag pedo in the Epstein papers, unlike Clinton.
i believe this is a re-post from 2019
Trump’s enterprise was engaged in a legitimate business, predating for decades his foray into politics, and wholly unrelated to his position of power.
Biden was selling the US down the river and was directly profiting from, and based solely on, his position of power.
People who fail to understand the difference have a lower IQ lower than a turnip.
(Not directed at you, 11th, but at the morons who try to see a moral equivalence).
Donald Trump Sells Out Hotel Space.
Joe Biden Sells Out America.
Funny thing how the democrats wished to pursue Trump for his business holdings while he was POTUS. Basically saying he was taking foreign money because of his preexisting hotels being used by foreigners in other countries.
Yet, it was fine for biden to shake down Ukraine, except money from China, and have boxes of classified material that foreign nations had access to. Not a single legitimate business, yet his family kept paying his expenses and returning ‘loan money’.
The three letter acronyms take public money but don’t protect the American people…. Only themselves.
“A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that Maryland and the District of Columbia do not have legal standing to claim that Trump violated the so-called emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
Which means every stock trade, where capital gains are realized by government officials while they are in office also violates the emoluments clause.
Oh yes.
I remember the corrupt, racist, single digit IQ Maxine Waters being on television crowing they had him, they finally had Trump and were going to nail him on the “emoluments” clause.
I have a pretty good vocabulary, but back then, I recall not knowing precisely what that word meant. And I knew she didn’t know until the moment someone told her, but she used it as if she had been using it her entire life.
It’s those “Democrat Strategy Meetings”. How are they going to get Trump?
So, we’re all those books Obama sold after he became President a violation too?
NOW-—THE MEDIA is HOWLING about renter’s in Trump buildings.
STUPID IS INGRAINED IN TODAY’S MEDIA
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