Posted on 11/25/2016 7:59:15 AM PST by Cheerio
While meeting with the New York Times yesterday for an on-the-record interview, President-elect Donald Trump stated that the president cannot have conflicts of interest and that the law was on his side. This comes in response to numerous concerns over Trump using his position to further enrich himself and his personal businesses.
During a discussion on CNN this morning, former White House lawyer Richard Painter made the case that if it appears that Trump will be in violation of the emolument clause of the Constitution, then the Electoral College must decide to not vote for him next month.
After he and fellow guest Jan Baran agreed that there isn’t an actual law that prevents Trump from being involved in his businesses while in the White House but that it does present numerous ethical issues, Painter said that he informed Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway of concerns around the emolument clause.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
Glad we got that sorted out.
If this is the case, then who do they vote for? Hillary is probably also in violation of this clause, so they "must decide to not vote for her next month".
Hello, President Jill Stein?
“The emolument clause only prevents the President from being under the financial influence of a foreign state.”
The hardcore types trying to postpone the inauguration claim it is Russia.
Definition of emolument:
the returns arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites
That clause would apply to Hillary who did take money in large quantities from Foreign Governments for favorable treatment.
In other words, only people who launder bribes in advance through their family’s “charitable” foundation are eligible to be President.
People who actually earned their money need not apply.
Trump is not going to run his business
He is turning it over to his children
Beside his business is private, not an “office” to which he was appointed or elected
Just like Hillary if elected was going to turn the Clinton Foundation over to Bill and Chelsea and never ever have a discussion with them
No conflicts there right?
Bush & Bushites, just go away!
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: >>>> esquire included.
obama’s been in violation of the constitution since before he was elected and it didn’t seem to bother ANYONE.
What Constitution, you mean the one that shows the President stepping on!
This comes in response to numerous concerns over Trump using his position to further enrich himself and his personal businesses. HAHAHA He is foregoing being paid as POTUS
Unlike Hillary, the Pay-to-Play in Chief?
“Let lose the dogs of war!!”
To your #3
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. ARTICLE I, SECTION 9, CLAUSE 8
Trump does not hold an OFFICE of Profit or Trust - he owns a private business.
Not at all the same thing, or even comparable.
Emolument, in the Constitutional sense, means a president may not receive additional compensation from those who may benefit from the official acts of that president.
California Congressman Duke Cunningham offered a menu-like price list to sell his votes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham
That’s the kind of emolument the Constitution forbids
. Painter ought to be going after Hillary Clinton - the evidence of her misconduct selling the State Department to the highest bidder is both blatant and overwhelming.
George Washington continued to profit from the operation of Mount Vernon plantation throughout his tenure because there was no conflict of interest between his farming business and his duties as president.
Richard Painter is a failed member of a purely political class making a fallacious argument to an uneducated class of Americans who are knee-jerk Never-Trumpers, that desperately want to believe Trump did not win this election.
Painter, in a nutshell, is trying to make the case that only a full-time paid political class of operatives, like himself have the imprimatur (are fit) to exercise authority over American subjects; er, I mean citizens.
As students of the history of Western civilization, the Founders’ paragon of the ideal citizen/president was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.
In fact, at the time our present Constitution was ratified, most literate Americans were quite aware of the history Roman Empire.
It is quite likely that most of the men participating in the Constitutional Convention (and sitting in the assemblies of the former colonies) were reading “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by English historian Edward Gibbon, published in six volumes not coincidentally between 1776-1789. How propitious.
Perhaps the most well-known statute of George Washington is Greenough’s depiction of him seated as Cincinnatus on display at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_(Greenough)
http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/cincinnatus/
Sadly most Americans today never heard of the Roman Empire and certainly far fewer ever heard of Edward Gibbon.
But educated 18th Century Americans certainly knew about Cincinnatus, the lessons learned from the fall of the Roman Empire and the lessons learned from the American Revolution and the shortcomings of the Continental Congress.
In 1790, a group of veterans of the American Revolutionary War renamed Losantiville, a sleepy little backwoods town located on the Ohio River, to Cincinnati.
Due to the synergy of a new America with a new constitution coupled with its strategic location on a major waterway supporting westward expansion, Cincinnati quickly became a “boom town,” described as the “Paris of America. In the early 19th Century, Cincinnati was one of the wealthiest cities in America.
It is beyond irony that today, just 226 years later, forsaking the legacy of its name, Cincinnati is in serious decline, like Rome the fall of Cincinnati is almost complete.
The City of Cincinnati today serves as a visible synecdoche for the whole of America and its decline.
There was an interesting thread here at FreeRepublic recently on this same topic about Calvin Coolidge http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3455823/posts
In keeping with the legacies of Cincinnatus, George Washington and many others, Calvin Coolidge aptly expressed the point of the article:
“It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion,” he observed. “They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.”
“While I had a desire to be relieved of the pretensions and delusions of public life, it was not because of any attraction of pleasure or idleness. We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.”
Trump is not required to forsake his private business enterprises to serve as president, no more than Cincinnatus, no more than George Washington.
Painter is wrong and he knows it.
Lawyers are so clever. Alas, they have no ethics.
Lawyers are so clever. Alas, they have no ethics.
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