On Friday, President Trump was not the winner in U.S. district court. Judge Peter Messitte denied the president’s request to appeal his July decision that allowed a lawsuit against Trump for his profits from foreign governments to proceed. The judge also denied the request to put the discovery process on hold. That means that the plaintiffs are one step closer to unraveling the opaque dealings of Trump’s D.C. hotel and its foreign customers. For the country, that’s a good thing.
In July, Messitte ruled that the lawsuit brought against Trump by the attorney generals of Maryland and Washington D.C. alleging that the Trump Organization, in taking payments that directly enriched the sitting president from foreign governments through the Trump International Hotel in D.C., was in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause would be allowed to proceed.
The emoluments clause reads: “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, of Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
That prohibition on emoluments, defined as “any profit, gain, or advantage,” is clearly designed to prevent any U.S. official from making a personal gain from a foreign power as it would compromise that official’s ability to act in the best interest of the country. Put simply, the Founding Fathers didn’t want officers of their new republic to be “bought off” by foreign powers.
That understanding of emoluments includes payments made by foreign governments, like the $150,000 reported by Trump’s D.C. hotel as “foreign profits” as well as other business deals through other Trump Organization enterprises.
Although Trump set up a trust for his businesses that supposedly separates him from the finances of the hotels and other Trump Organization holdings, that money still ends up back in the president’s hands making his continued profit from foreign powers a direct violation of the Constitution.
Given the unfavorable decision that might finally allow for a close look at the finances of his business empire, Trump requested to appeal that decision and to put on hold the discovery process that would give the plaintiffs access to the financial dealings of the president.
With Friday’s denial of that request, and the lawsuit again winding its way through the U.S. justice system, Trump’s finances, or at least some of them, are closer to facing the scrutiny that he has thus far avoided by refusing to release his tax returns.
For the public, that’s undoubtedly a good thing. The people should know whom their president is beholden to and how foreign governments and actors might be buying favor with the president with purchases at his properties.
After all, the president of the United States should be serving the people, not his own financial interests. The White House is not a get-rich-quick scheme shielded by the authority of the Resolute Desk.
