The Emoluments Clause lawsuits have no merit. A number of citizens and organizations, as well as the District of Columbia and Maryland, have sued alleging that President Trump has violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Those lawsuits, writes Ilya Shapiro, are “frivolous,” “nonsense,” and “a waste of time and resources”:
“[T]he Emoluments Clause is a stopgap against the risk that foreign powers will try to curry favor by bribing U.S. officials with gifts and other baubles. (Maybe even titles of nobility, which are prohibited for all Americans by another constitutional provision.) To be sure, a politically motivated decision by a foreign government to give preferential permitting or land acquisition terms to a Trump construction project could be a favor worth millions of dollars.
“But is booking suites at a Trump hotel or holding a conference at another Trump facility really a bribe? So long as payments are made at market rates – not ‘here’s 100 million dollars for a room with a view’ – I don’t see how they could. Whatever the Emoluments Clause protects against, arms-length business transactions ain’t it.
“Indeed, to hold to the contrary would be to disqualify businessmen with a diversified portfolio from the White House. That can’t be the case; George Washington himself was a wealthy landholder who engaged in business with foreign nationals.”
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