Liberal watchdog group to sue Trump, alleging he is violating

>If the lawsuit were to succeed, it could put a major dent in the business of the Trump Organization — whose businesses lease office space to state-owned companies, and whose Pennsylvania Avenue hotel rents its ballrooms for foreign embassy parties. The mere process of the suit could prove embarrassing for the president if it drags out details of those business dealings from the Trump Organization’s private files. Norm Eisen, a lawyer working on the case, told the New York Times he hoped the suit could also produce a copy of Trump’s tax returns, which could detail the business he does with — and the money he owes to — foreign states such as China and Russia.

>The law firm Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, which represents Trump, declined to comment. So did Trump’s son Eric Trump, who is among the leaders of the Trump Organization while his father is president. Attempts to reach the White House press office Sunday evening were unsuccessful.

>Before the president took office, his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, said he would transfer management of his businesses to his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., along with other executives. The president will, however, not give up his ownership stakes. Dillon said it is incorrect to say Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause if his company merely does business with a foreign government — taking its money and giving it something of value in return.

>“This is not what the Constitution says. Paying for a hotel room is not a gift or a present, and it has nothing to do with an office. It’s not an emolument,” Dillon said then.

>In this particular case, the liberal watchdog group’s suit appears likely to face difficult legal hurdles. One would be Dillon’s argument that paying a hotel bill is not a prohibited gift.
...

>Another problem is the question of the watchdog group’s standing to sue. There is a general legal rule that to file suit against someone for wrongdoing, a plaintiff must have suffered some specific harm from that wrongdoing. That’s an issue that has hung over all the discussions of an Emoluments Clause lawsuit: If Trump does violate the Constitution, whom does he hurt?

>In this case, the watchdog says its own group was hurt by having to spend so much time monitoring this particular issue.

>“CREW has been forced to divert essential and limited resources — including time and money — from other important matters that it ordinarily would have been handling to the Foreign Emoluments Clause issues involving Defendant, which have consumed the attention of the public and the media,” the planned lawsuit complaint says.

>Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007 and is now the vice chairman of CREW’s board of directors. He argued that the group has standing because it has been distracted from its usual focus issues.

>“CREW’s whole purpose is about combating corruption in the federal government,” he said. “So up until this point, the two major causes of corruption in the government were the revolving door in Washington and campaign finance. The vast majority of resources were spent on that. It was a two-front war, and now this opens up a third front.”
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>Other legal scholars have said that claim may not be enough of an injury to let CREW’s case continue. Another theory is that the best-positioned party to sue Trump may be a rival D.C. hotel, if one of them lost out on embassy business because the embassies used the Trump hotel instead. But that would require finding a large D.C. hotel with a willingness to sue the president of the United States at the outset of his term.

Didn't he give his businesses over to his kids?

He'll wriggle out of this no problem.

>>102715
>He'll wriggle out of this no problem.He'll wriggle out of this no problem.He'll wriggle out of this no problem.
It's likely, yes, but this has never been tested in court before. Nobody can say with certainty what will happen.

This is apparently going to be just the first test of many.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/22/us/politics/trump-foreign-payments-constitution-lawsuit.html

>The A.C.L.U. filed an extensive Freedom of Information Act request on Thursday asking the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the Office of Government Ethics for all legal opinions and memos they have prepared addressing financial or ethical conflicts that Mr. Trump might face. It could potentially use those documents in litigation against the Trump administration.

>CREW filed a separate complaint with the General Services Administration on Friday over a provision that appears to prohibit the leasing of the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to an elected federal official. The building is the site of Mr. Trump’s hotel.

>Perhaps more important, the legal groups said they might challenge executive actions Mr. Trump is expected to take on topics like international trade deals, illegal immigration and climate change.

>>102717
damn sticky V key makes me paste in triplicate