Tag: emoluments clause
The Many Crimes For Which Trump Hasn't Been Indicted -- Yet

The Many Crimes For Which Trump Hasn't Been Indicted -- Yet

How quickly we forget some of the outrageous acts Donald Trump was accused of committing while president. Let us review:

We begin with Trump’s incitement of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and his multi-pronged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election by illegal means. There was his attempt to strong-arm the Georgia secretary of state into “finding” enough votes that Trump would be declared victor in that state. Trump also called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and urged him to call a special session of the legislature at which the election results would be thrown out and a new slate of electors appointed. He called the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House and attempted to strong-arm him into doing the same thing with the Pennsylvania legislature.

Trump met in the White House with members of the Michigan legislature and urged them to take similar steps in their state. He also made numerous phone calls to state officials and legislators in other battleground states, trying to pressure them to throw out the results of the elections in their states and submit slates of fake electors to the Congress. These calls resulted in the appointment of fake slates of electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump’s phone calls and meetings about submitting fake slates of electors would appear to be an overt act in furtherance of an attempt to interfere with a legitimate function of the government, i.e., the certification of electoral ballots on January 6.

Trump was behind attempts in several states to get law enforcement agencies to seize voting machines and turn them over to the Trump legal team. Voting machines were seized by officials or Trump-backers in Georgia and Colorado and voting machine data was copied by people working on Trump’s behalf in Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona. Tampering with voting data is illegal in every state in the Union, as is conspiracy to tamper with such data. Trump was in direct contact with his lawyer, Sidney Powell, who filed numerous lawsuits in battleground states on his behalf and was behind attempts to seize voting machines in Michigan and tampering with voting machine data in Nevada and Colorado.

Trump met with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn in the Oval Office where they discussed suspending the Constitution, imposing martial law, and “re-running” the election using the U.S. military. Discussing such illegal schemes amounts to a conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate functions of the federal government, and the conspiracy need not bear fruit, i.e., be carried out, in order for an indictment for engaging in the conspiracy to be brought. The plot to impose martial law went far enough and was taken seriously enough that on December 18, Army Chief of Staff General James McConville and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy issued a joint statement telling all active-duty Army forces that "There is no role for the US military in determining the outcome of an American election.”

And then of course there is the matter of Trump’s theft of government documents from the White House and his refusal over a period of 18 months to return them to the federal government, specifically to the National Archives, where they belonged. He is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for having violated no less than three federal statutes involving obstruction of justice (he defied a subpoena and appears to have attempted to silence certain witnesses), mishandling of national security information (over 100 highly classified documents seized by the FBI from his office and residence at Mar a Lago) and the theft of the documents themselves.

There are unresolved allegations by the Mueller Report that Trump engaged in multiple acts of obstruction of justice and obstruction of a congressional committee. Mueller held that a sitting president could not be indicted and so dropped the matter. Trump isn’t president anymore. He’s indictable on every count of obstruction established by Mueller’s investigation. In case you forgot or haven’t checked lately, the Mueller investigation lasted nearly two years, from May of 2017 to March of 2019. The Mueller report itself survives, as does all the evidence his team of investigators painstakingly amassed, currently held by the National Archives.

The New York Times reported today that six countries spent more than $750,000 at the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. while their officials were attempting to influence the Trump administration on behalf of their governments. The House Oversight Committee previously estimated that the Trump Hotel received as much as $3.7 million from foreign governments between 2017 and 2020. Trump refused to put his assets in a blind trust during his time in the presidency, instead turning over the running of his many businesses to his sons Eric and Donald Jr. and his daughter Ivanka. All the proceeds of Trump’s businesses go directly to Donald Trump as the sole owner of more than 500 separate companies under the umbrella of the Trump Organization.

The Trump Hotel, which was located in the Old Post Office building in Washington D.C. while Trump was president, is one of his companies, thus all profits derived from the hotel would accrue to his benefit. The Constitution’s Emoluments Clause 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. An emolument has been defined as anything of value including money. Trump’s profiting from monies spent at his hotel in Washington would appear to violate the U.S. Constitution, which is the Supreme Law of the Land.

And now we arrive at another late-breaking Trump crime. The New York Times also reported today that John Kelly, Trump’s second and longest-serving chief of staff, revealed to the paper that Trump had, on multiple occasions, attempted to have the IRS conduct audits of his political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe. On other occasions, Trump discussed with Kelly having the Department of Justice and the IRS investigate Hillary Clinton, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post), Peter Strzok, the lead FBI agent working on the Mueller investigation team, and Lisa Page, another FBI agent with whom Strzok was having an affair, and with whom he exchanged text messages critical of Trump.

No audits were conducted by the IRS on the incomes of either Comey or McCabe during the time Kelly was White House chief of staff. However, after Kelly left that position and Mark Meadows was appointed in his place, the IRS audited both Comey and McCabe, conducting a type of extensive audit described by experts as “an autopsy without being dead.”It is a violation of federal law for any federal official, including the president, “to request, directly or indirectly” that the IRS audit or conduct any kind of investigation of specific American taxpayers. Trump’s conversations with Kelly appear to fit the definition of that crime.

I’m sure I’ve missed something. Trump was a very busy man when it came to lining his own pockets, retaliating against political rivals and enemies, and attempting to either fix the results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, or in the case of the 2020 election, overturn its results. He seems to have committed enough crimes while in office to make even the second most corrupt president in recent memory, Richard Nixon, swivel in his grave.

It appears likely at this writing that the Department of Justice will seek to indict Trump on multiple counts of interfering with government operations, the mishandling of national security information, and obstruction of justice. The DOJ has seated two grand juries in Washington D.C., where they have presented multiple witnesses over the past year. One grand jury is hearing evidence on Trump’s crimes surrounding January 6 and his attempts to overturn the election of 2020. The other grand jury is hearing evidence concerning his theft and mishandling of government-owned documents after he left office.

Which is precisely what matters today. Donald Trump, who believed he was invulnerable while he was president and so did pretty much anything he decided to do and damn the consequences, is now a civilian. He is, in a word, indictable, whether he makes himself a candidate in the next presidential election or not.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter

Government Agencies Using Trump Hotels, Despite Official Ethics Advice

Government Agencies Using Trump Hotels, Despite Official Ethics Advice

A bombshell report dropped late Thursday from the Washington Post showing just how much money Trump has pocketed from taxpayers by encouraging government agencies to use his properties for official government events — a practice his own ethics officials know is wrong but have been powerless to stop.

Trump earned at least $1.6 million from both the federal government and Republican campaigns which have used his properties. And the Post cautioned that the actual number is likely much, much higher, given that the numbers they crunched were only from the first half of 2017 when Trump first took office. Since then, Trump, GOP lawmakers, and administration officials have made many more stops at his properties.

In fact, GOP fundraisers admit that’s why they hold fundraisers at Trump hotels — it increases the chances Trump might show up.

Trump has also been successful in getting government agencies to use his properties. The Department of Defense shelled out $12,000 for rooms at Mar-a-Lago in early 2017. Other executive agencies racked up a $30,000 bill for hotel stays in April of that year as well.

The Post went on to report that ethics officials have “sought to dissuade” Trump from holding official events or taking trips to his properties — such as the out-of-the-way pit stop he made to his failing golf resort in Ireland during his U.K. state visit earlier this month — but have been ignored.

In fact, Trump has only gotten more brazen about his use of his properties.

Trump wants to hold a Group of Seven (G-7) meeting at his failing golf resort in Doral, Florida. That would mean foreign governments would be spending large sums of money at his property, putting money in Trump’s pocket in what looks like a blatant violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause that bans presidents from receiving payments from foreign governments.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Founders Foresaw Trump When They Wrote Emoluments Clause

Founders Foresaw Trump When They Wrote Emoluments Clause

Reprinted with permission from DCReport.

That pesky, annoying caboose of legal problems for Donald Trump continues to move through the federal courts, thanks to a decision last week.

While Trump faces attacks on his taxes, his business practices and ethics, and the findings of the Mueller Report, this challenge focuses on the idea that Trump continues to bank profits from his hotel business while serving in the White House — an alleged abridgment of the “emoluments” clause of the Constitution.

In Washington, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan denied a Justice Department request to dismiss the lawsuit, filed in 2017 by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and 200 other members of the House and Senate who claim Trump is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments through his hotels.

As summarized by Fortune Magazine, the judge’s ruling would allow the Democrats to start seeking financial records from the Trump Organization in a pre-trial exchange of information. The Justice Department can try to block that by appealing the ruling. Trump is already fighting congressional subpoenas for his tax information in court and has vowed to fight “all subpoenas.”

Sullivan in September ruled the Democrats have legal standing to pursue their claim, and held off deciding on the merits. Last Tuesday’s 48-page decision gives a detailed explanation for siding with the Democrats in a fight they say is crucial for battling corruption by the Trump White House.

As part of the clash, Democrats are using a broad definition of emoluments to cover profits from Trump’s businesses and Trump is seeking a narrow meaning. Sullivan said the Democrats had the more convincing argument.

Trump’s definition “disregards the ordinary meaning of the term as set forth in the vast majority of Founding-era dictionaries,” Sullivan said in his ruling. The judge also said Trump’s definition “is inconsistent with the text, structure, historical interpretation, adoption, and purpose of the clause; and is contrary to executive branch practice over the course of many years.”

Democrats argued the word is broadly defined “as any profit, gain or advantage.” The president countered that an emolument would be, for example, a payment from a foreign government for an official action or a salary from a foreign power.

The emoluments clause says that certain federal officials, including the president, can’t accept an emolument from “any King, Prince, or foreign State” without “the Consent of the Congress.” The congressional Democrats are seeking an order compelling Trump to notify Congress when he’s offered an emolument, giving them the option to vote on whether he can accept it. Blumenthal has called the emoluments clauses the Constitution’s “premier anti-corruption provision.”

Trump said he stepped down from running his $3 billion empire but retained his ownership interests, a decision the Democrats say violates the emoluments clause because he’s getting payments from foreign governments without congressional approval.

While the Democrats claimed they’re being denied the right to vote on the benefits, attorneys for the president say the matter should be resolved in Congress, not in court.

Meanwhile, Reuters has an interesting report about what appears to be another emoluments clause controversy. This one aims at how Trump has allowed at least seven foreign governments to rent luxury condominiums in New York’s Trump World Tower in 2017 without approval from Congress, according to documents and people familiar with the leases, a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause.

The emoluments clause controversies started out as debates among legal scholars regarding provisions of the Constitution that had not been interpreted by any court of record in the United States since the adoption of the Constitution itself. Over the past two years, though, the issues raised have given rise to litigation across the nation and allegations of self-dealing and what some might call influence peddling through Trump’s businesses, in a form that has never been seen with any previous president.

IMAGE: Flags fly above the entrance to the new Trump International Hotel on its opening day in Washington, DC, September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Seven Foreign Governments Quietly Renting Trump Condos

Seven Foreign Governments Quietly Renting Trump Condos

At least seven foreign governments were given the green light from the Trump State Department to pay out money that could find its way into Trump’s own personal bank accounts.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the governments of Iraq, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Thailand, and the European Union were allowed to rent luxury condominiums in Trump World Tower in New York — even though doing so could violate the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits federal officials like Trump from accepting payments or gifts from foreign governments without the approval of Congress.

It also appears that Trump and his underlings understand the potential problems with this deal, and thus sought to hide it from congressional oversight.

“Congressional staffers confirmed to Reuters that the Trump World Tower lease requests were never submitted to Congress,” the outlet reported.

Trump’s electoral victory seems to have triggered a mad rush for those who wanted to influence U.S. policy to get money into Trump World Tower and into Trump’s pockets.

Reuters notes that in the eight months following Trump’s inauguration, foreign governments sent 13 notes to the State Department looking to rent or renew leases in Trump’s building. That was more foreign government requests in a short time window than in the last two years of the Obama administration; President Barack Obama did not open himself up to the appearance of bribery like Trump.

All of these foreign entities have major diplomatic and financial agreements and negotiations with the United States — and every decision Trump made regarding those governments could have been tainted by corruption.

“Letting this go without Congress knowing about it condones the creation of a second, opaque track of foreign policy,” Harold Hongju Koh, a professor at Yale Law School and former legal adviser at the State Department, told Reuters.

“This new information raises serious questions about the President and his businesses’ potential receipt of payments from foreign governments,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings told Reuters.

Trump has been trying to thwart investigations into him and his businesses by Cummings’ committee and others in Congress. When Republicans ran the House, they did not bother to investigate these violations of the law or ethics.

Trump refused to follow the tradition followed by both Democratic and Republican presidents of divesting of his personal business holdings before taking office or putting them in a blind trust.

This means that since Trump is still an active owner of the Trump Corporation, which owns the property in question, money that is generated by the company finds its way into Trump’s personal accounts.

Trump has a similarly corrupt operation in place with the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Foreign governments, Republican Party committees and affiliated PACs, and lobbyists seeking to influence Trump are all doing business with his hotel.

The newly revealed condo arrangement with foreign governments is just one of many examples of how Trump’s presidency allows a culture of corruption to flourish.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

IMAGE: President Donald Trump reacts during the swearing in ceremony for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who oversaw the State Department when foreign governments leased condos in Trump World Tower. REUTERS/Carlos Barria