User:Dakleman/Comparison of Claims

Comparison of Claims in Lawsuits alleging violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution is a breakdown of the complaints made against Donald Trump to identify commonalities traced to primary and secondary sources for a future WikiProject on these lawsuits or related legal issues. Users are free to edit, but I ask for your patience until 6 years ago enforcing Wikipedia is an encyclopedia until we can figure out what of this (if any) can be developed well enough to add to/form Articles.

Lawsuits alleging Trump's actions violate of the Emoluments Clause

Main article: List of lawsuits involving Donald Trump § Lawsuits arising out of Trump's actions as president

• CREW v. Trump
  • Case in Main
    • Original Complaint
    • First Amended Complaint
    • Second Amended Complaint
    • Amici Briefs
    • (Pending) Response
    • Reply to Response
  • Motion to Dismiss
    • For
    • (Pending) Against
    • Rebuttal
  • Timeline
    • Initiation
    • Expansion
    • Motion to Dismiss
• D.C. and Maryland v. Trump
  • Case in Main
    • Original Complaint
    • (Pending) Amici Breifs
    • (Pending) Response
    • Reply to Response
  • (Pending) Motion to Dismiss
    • For
    • Against
    • Rebuttal
  • Timeline
    • Initiation
• Blumenthal v. Trump
  • Case in Main
    • Original Complaint
      • OCp36 Summary of argument
      • OC54 Lawyers for Plaintiff
    • (Pending) Amici Breifs
    • (Pending) Response
    • Reply to Response
  • (Pending) Motion to Dismiss
    • For
    • Against
    • Rebuttal
  • Appearances
    • For Plaintiffs
    • For Defense
  • Timeline
    • Initiation

Law Citations

Case Law

• Ysursa v. Pocatello Educ. Ass'n

Constitution

• Foreign Emoluments Clause
• Domestic Emoluments Clause

Scholarly Works

• Eisen2016

Other Authorities

• Earlier Foreign Emoluments Clause
• 2Farrand389
• 3Farrand327
• The Federalist No. 73
• Major James D. Dunn, B-251084, 1993 WL 426335, at *3 (Comp. Gen. Oct. 12, 1993)
• OLC1994
• OLC2009a7
• OLC2009a8

Recent News For Judicial Notice

• NPR2016
• OGE2016
• News Conference
• ProPublica

Claims

Claims of type

CREW v. Trump					DC & MD v. Trump			Blumenthal v. Trump			Claim
Second Amended Complaint	Motion to Dismiss	Amicus Brief	Response	Reply	Complaint	Response	Reply	Complaint	Response	Reply
¶1	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Trump's "business interests as vast, complicated, and secret"
¶1	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Trump's "business interests are creating countless conflicts of interest"
¶1	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Trump's "business interests are creating ... unprecedented influence by foreign governments"
¶1	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Trump's "business interests ... result in ... violations of ... the “Foreign Emoluments Clause,”"
¶1	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Trump's "business interests ... result in ... violations of ... the “Domestic Emoluments Clause,”"
¶2	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Foreign Emoluments Clause requires consent of Congress when accepting foreign presents or emoluments
¶2	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	"Congress has not consented to Defendant’s receipt of the presents or emoluments at issue"
¶3	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Trump's violations of Foreign Emoluments Clause "pose a grave threat to the United States and its citizens"
¶3	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Text of Foreign Emoluments Clause forbid Trump's behavior
¶3	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Purpose of Foreign Emoluments Clause forbid Trump's behavior
¶4	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Foreign Emoluments Clause is "a strict prophylactic rule" against historical examples of corruption
¶5	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Domestic Emoluments Clause forbids "any other Emolument" from United States or any of the 50 states

See Also

• User:Dakleman/List of Plaintiffs for full list of 196 plaintiffs in Blumenthal v. Trump

Reading List

Inbox

• Dorf on Law (emoluments) Dec 19, 2016 - Jun 26, 2017
• Take Care Blog (emoluments) Mar 24, 2017 - Jun 26, 2017
  • Updates | The Week of June 12, 2017
  • All TC Analysis of Emoluments Issues & Cases
• Zephyr Teachout; Seth Barrett Tillman, "The Foreign Emoluments Clause: Article I, Section 9, Clause 8", Interactive Constitution: Common Interpretation, National Constitution Center
  • Zephyr Teachout, "The Foreign Emoluments Clause", Interactive Constitution: Matters of Debate, National Constitution Center
  • Seth Barrett Tillman, "The Foreign Emoluments Clause Reached Only Appointed Officers", Interactive Constitution: Matters of Debate, National Constitution Center

Pre-2016

• Zephyr Teachout (2009), "The Anti-Corruption Principle" (PDF), Cornell Law Review, 94: 341–413, Ultimately, three of the biggest protections created by the Framers were the Ineligibility Clause, the Emoluments Clause, and the Foreign Gifts Clause
• Zephyr Teachout (2012), "Gifts, Offices, and Corruption", Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, 107: 30–54, SSRN 2081879
• Seth Barrett Tillman (2013), "The Original Public Meaning Of The Foreign Emoluments Clause: A Reply To Professor Zephyr Teachout", Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, 107 (18): 180–208

2016

• Seth Barrett Tillman (Nov 18, 2016), "Constitutional Restrictions on Foreign Gifts Don't Apply to Presidents", New York Times
• Andy Grewal (Nov 22, 2016), "The Trump Hotel Isn't Unconstitutional", Notice & Comment (Blog), It is thus doubtful that the receipt of payments by the Trump Hotel from foreign diplomats automatically establishes the acceptance of a gift or emolument by Trump. If the Trump Hotel has a range of guests and charges foreign government guests the prevailing market rates, the Emoluments Clause shouldn't apply.
• Rosalind S. Helderman; Tom Hamburger (Nov 25, 2016), "Trump's presidency, overseas business deals and relations with foreign governments could all become intertwined", Washington Post, Ethics experts say that if Trump takes no action to distance himself from his business holdings, he is likely to face questions about whether he is pursuing policy in the national interest or for his own business advantage. It is also possible that Trump could run afoul of a constitutional provision prohibiting presidents from accepting favors, or "emoluments," from foreign leaders.
• Matthew Stephenson (Nov 29, 2016), "Donald Trump Will Probably Violate the Foreign Emoluments Clause. So What?", Global Anticorruption Blog, Even if some party could establish that he or she had standing to bring a suit against the President for violation of the Clause, it's just not realistic to imagine that the U.S. Supreme Court would intervene. My guess is that if such a suit were brought, and weren't immediately dismissed on standing grounds, the courts would invoke the little-used "Political Question Doctrine" to decline to rule on the issue. In any case, what would the remedy be? Would the Court order the President to give back the (excess) financial gain he received from a foreign government? Would it order the President to divest his business holdings, or place them in a blind trust? While perhaps these ideas might not be totally outlandish in a parallel universe, I have a hard time imagining that you'd get five Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court (one of whom would almost certainly be a recent Trump appointee) to go along with something like that. The Court would likely say that this is one of those issues that should be left to the political branches.
• Norman L. Eisen; Richard W. Painter (Dec 7, 2016), "Donald Trump will still be violating the Constitution as soon as he's sworn in", The Atlantic, after a blizzard of reporting on the president-elect's foreign business relations in recent days, it appears that Trump will be in violation of this clause of the Constitution from the moment he takes office—and the plan for his business that he hinted at on Twitter last week does not solve the problem.
• Andy Grewal (Dec 13, 2016), "Should Congress Impeach Obama for His Emoluments Clause Violations?", Notice & Comment (Blog), Regarding President-elect Trump, the analysis would be similar. If he, through his business, receives an above-market interest payment from foreign governments, that would provide a sign that he is profiting from providing services to a foreign government, and is not simply being compensated for the loaning of funds. But where transactions involving the Trump Organization are conducted at arm's length, no emolument arises.
• Richard Painter; Norman Eisen (Dec 13, 2016), "Donald Trump will still be violating the Constitution as soon as he's sworn in", Washington Post, So Trump's concept of "no new deals" is questionable. And it certainly is not enough to address the concerns about Trump's conflicts that we and many others have raised in The Washington Post and elsewhere. Continuance of the current Trump empire means that it will be rife with opportunities for quid pro quos and other illegalities. Most immediately, if those businesses continue to receive foreign government payments, Trump will be in violation of the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution from his first day as president.

Jan 2017

• Norman Eisen; Richard W. Painter; Lawerence H. Tribe (Jan 10, 2017), "5 Ways You'll Know if Trump Is Playing by the Rules", Politico, Through a provision called the Foreign Emoluments Clause, the Constitution puts strict limits on the president's ability to receive cash and other benefits from foreign governments. The founders recognized the importance of assuring the American people that the president is acting only in their best interest. Part of the way they did that was by barring "presents [and] emoluments ... of any kind whatever" from foreign sovereigns or their agents. That means gifts, cash and other benefits (such as building permits and trademarks), that currently flow into Trump's businesses on an ongoing basis. For an example, one need look no further than Trump's hotel a few blocks from the White House, which has aggressively courted foreign government business since his election. Moreover, Trump's U.S. holdings also raise issues under another constitutional prohibition forbidding emoluments to the president from states and other domestic governmental actors. The Constitution strictly forbids all this; if Trump does not divest all his business interests, he will violate the most fundamental charter of our nation immediately after he takes the vow to uphold it on Inauguration Day.
• Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (Jan 11, 2017), Conflicts of Interest and the President (PDF) (White Paper)
• Josh Blackman (Jan 11, 2017), "The Originalist Analysis about the Emoluments Clause from President-Elect Trump's Legal Team", Josh Blackman's Blog (Blog), The emoluments clause has never been given a definitive resolution by the Supreme Court. In the absence of any precedent, we are presented with a wide-open interpretive question about the original meaning of the Constitution. We don't get these sorts of debates very often. It is unfortunate that this debate arose in such a pitched, partisan environment.
• Michael Ramsey (Jan 13, 2017), "Trump's Emoluments Opinion as an Ideological Statement", The Originalism Blog (Blog), [The whitepaper by the President's lawyers] picks a side in the debate over methods of constitutional interpretation. Moreover, it picks a contested side, and one likely to be especially unpersuasive to the President-elect's principal critics (such as Laurence Tribe). It does not need to do that to make its case, and its not clear its case is helped by taking such an approach.
• John Mikhail (Jan 18, 2017), "A Note on the Original Meaning of "Emolument"", Balkinization (Blog), None of the foregoing passages, however, entails or even strongly implies that the original meaning of "emolument" must necessarily exclude a wider category of payments or benefits, which might cause the Trump Organization's businesses to violate the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that "emolument" was often used at the founding in a much wider sense, one that went beyond the duties of an office and encompassed the fruits of ordinary market transactions.
• Andy Grewal (Jan 19, 2017), "The Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Chief Executive", Minnesota Law Review, 102
• https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/17451/ {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Jonathan H. Adler (Jan 23, 2017), "Does the emoluments clause lawsuit against President Trump stand a chance?", Washington Post
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-business-conflicts-lawsuit-20170123-story.html {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/23/why-trumps-business-conflicts-cant-and-wont-just-be-swept-aside-commentary.html {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Noah Feldman (Jan 24, 2017), "Constitutional Suit Against Trump Faces Hurdles", Bloomberg View
• Michael Dorf (Jan 24, 2017), "Members of Congress Have Standing in the Emoluments Suit", Dorf on Law (Blog)
  • Michael C. Dorf (Jan 26, 2017), "Michael Dorf: Yes, The Lawyers Suing Trump Do Have Standing", Newsweek
• Eric J. Segall (Jan 25, 2017), "Let the emoluments case against Trump go forward", Los Angeles Times
• Josh Blackman (Jan 26, 2017), "Larry Tribe Calls My Emoluments Clause Analysis A "Linguistic Sleight of Hand"", Josh Blackman's Blog (Blog)
• Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson (Jan 26, 2017), "Will Politics Derail Suit Over Trump Business Deals?", Bloomberg BNA
• Laurence H. Tribe; Deepak Gupta; Joshua Matz; Jonathan Taylor (Jan 30, 2017), The Courts and the Foreign Emoluments Clause

Feb 2017

• Peter Van Buren (Feb 6, 2017), "The Emoluments Clause, Impeachment, And Trump: An Explainer", Huffington Post, There are mostly questions and very few answers about the Emoluments Clause. There are also legitimate concerns over conflicts of interest during the Trump administration; no president in history has come into office with as vast and complex financial holdings. Modern presidents have bypassed all of this by using blind trusts, something Trump has said he will not do. This is clearly uncharted legal and political territory.
• Elura Nanos (Feb 8, 2017), "The Other Emoluments Clause That Could Really Spell Legal Trouble For President Trump", Law Newz, Congress can sanction an emolument that comes from a foreign government. But when we're talking specifically about POTUS, and we're talking about his profiting domestically, it's always a "no." And even a Republican Congress can't help. The president gets a salary, and that's it. End. Of. Story.
• Dan McLaughlin (Feb 18, 2017), "Following Up On The Foreign Emoluments Clause and Gerrymandering", National Review

Mar 2017

• Dan McLaughlin (Mar 6, 2017), "The Trump Organization's unnecessary emoluments-clause problem", National Review, President Obama faced no compensation-clause challenges for collecting income from the federal government on more than half a million dollars' worth of Treasury bonds he owned while president, since the income wasn't connected to his job.
• Seth Barrett Tillman (Mar 19, 2017), "Business Transactions for Value Are Not "Emoluments"", The New Reform Club (Blog)
• Ron Fein; Brianne Gorod (Mar 21, 2017), "Lining Trump's Pockets", US News and World Report, Congress has complied with its part of the Domestic Emoluments Clause: It set a fixed salary of $400,000 for the president. Trump has said he won't keep that salary, but either way, his failure to give up ownership of his businesses means that he may end up receiving well more than $400,000 from the federal treasury before he leaves office. And that's exactly what the Domestic Emoluments Clause prohibits.
• Sarah Posner (Mar 22, 2017), "Gorsuch is being cagey about his views on Trump and ethics. That could pose huge problems.", Washington Post, Apparently using this pending litigation [CREW v. Trump] as an excuse, Gorsuch demurred from Leahy's questions on the grounds that if confirmed, he would likely hear such a case. Throughout his hearings, Gorsuch has leaned on this crutch — that Supreme Court nominees should not comment on the merits of pending cases or cases that are likely to come before the court. ... But the evasion on the emoluments clause is different. For one thing, there is no Supreme Court precedent on the emoluments clause, a further sign that Trump's alleged violation of it would be unprecedented, both legally and politically. Rather than addressing the gravity of these political corruption charges and the threat Trump's alleged wrongdoing poses to the Constitution and our democracy, Gorsuch described the emoluments clause more as a quaint relic that "sat in a rather dusty corner" for most of the nation's history.
  "Among other things, it prohibits members of the government of this country from taking emoluments — gifts from foreign agents," he went on. "The question is what exactly that means."
• CREW Statement On GSA Trump Hotel Decision (Press Release), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Mar 23, 2017
• Jackie Northam; Marilyn Geewax (Mar 23, 2017), "GSA Says Trump D.C. Hotel Lease Is Valid, Despite Ban On Elected Officials", The Two-Way (Press Release), NPR
• Brianne J. Gorod (Mar 24, 2017), "GSA, Trump International Hotel, and the Constitution", Take Care (Blog), To the surprise of all of those experts, the GSA yesterday declared that the lease remains valid. Experts on ethics and government procurement law have already responded and are saying that the GSA's decision is plainly wrong. But there's an even larger question: does the GSA's decision to bless this situation run afoul of the Domestic Emoluments Clause?
• Dan Alexander (Mar 24, 2017), "After Promising Not To Talk Business With Father, Eric Trump Says He'll Give Him Financial Reports", Forbes, less than two minutes later, he concedes that he will continue to update his father on the business while he is in the presidency. "Yeah, on the bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that, but you know, that's about it." How often will those reports be, every quarter? "Depending, yeah, depending." Could be more, could be less? "Yeah, probably quarterly." One thing is clear: "My father and I are very close," Eric Trump says. "I talk to him a lot. We're pretty inseparable."
• Max Yoeli (Mar 28, 2017), "President Trump and His Businesses: Not So Separate After All", Brennan Center for Justice, It turns out, however, that the president ceded neither [control nor ownership of assets]. Late last week, it emerged that, far from being walled off from his businesses as he promised, President Trump is actually getting regular financial updates on them.

Apr 2017

• Sharon LaFraniere; Danny Hakim (Apr 11, 2017), "Trump's Trademark Continues Its March Across the Globe, Raising Eyebrows", New York Times, in a brief expected to be filed this month, Justice Department lawyers will counter that the framers of the Constitution meant only to rule out gifts and compensation for services, not ordinary, arm's-length commercial transactions with foreign governments.
• Eugene Kontorovich (Apr 13, 2017), "Did George Washington Take 'Emoluments'?", Wall Street Journal, On Dec. 12, 1793, Washington wrote to Arthur Young, an officer of the U.K. Board of Agriculture, an entity newly created and funded by Parliament at the initiative of William Pitt. The president asked for Young's help in renting out his Mount Vernon lands to secure an income for his retirement. Not finding customers in America, he wondered if Young, with his agricultural connections, could find and organize some would-be farmers in his home country and send them over.
• Eugene Kontorovich (Apr 14, 2017), "George Washington was the first president to stay in the real estate business", Washington Post, Crucially, even before assuming the presidency, Washington vehemently insisted on keeping their rather banal exchanges strictly private. Given the great pains he took with his reputation, he explained, he would be chagrined of something "however distant itself from impropriety" would nonetheless "give occasion for one officious tongue to use my name with indelicacy."
• Jed Shugerman (Apr 15, 2017), "The Emoluments Clauses and Akins "Voter" Standing", Shugerblog, it seems to me that the Emoluments challenges have standing under Akins v. FEC. ... The key here is to frame the Emoluments challenge as a challenge to the democratic process, concentration of political power through corruption, and the values of voting. Akins was about money flowing to PACs and into politics. Emoluments are similar.
• Joshua Matz (Apr 18, 2017), "Will Trump's Lawyers Rewrite and Invert the Emoluments Clause?", Take Care (Blog), In this case as in so many others, Congress's authority to act and authorize does not mean that its failure to act precludes a judicial accounting of illegal conduct.
  Payments to the President from powers are illegal unless Congress says they are not. So long as Congress remains silent, the President is breaking the law, and injured parties have every right to seek remedy in federal court. That is the nature of our constitutional system.
• Jennifer Rubin (Apr 18, 2017), "Emoluments lawsuit could force Trump to cough up his tax returns", Washington Post, This is a significant development that does much to alleviate the "standing" problem, the legal requirement that the plaintiff suffered actual harm.
• Jed Shugerman (Apr 18, 2017), "Out-Standing News: CREW adds new plaintiffs with solid standing", Shugerblog, Both [new plaintiffs] have solid claims that they are injured by President Trump's emoluments, using his office as an illegal market advantage over his competitors by drawing business from foreign entities and from federal and state spending.
• Mark Hensch (Apr 18, 2017), "Lawsuit against Trump now includes China trademarks", The Hill, A lawsuit alleging President Trump violated the Constitution's so-called emoluments clause now lists "gratuitous Chinese trademarks" among its examples.
• Kaja Whitehouse (Apr 18, 2017), "Tom Colicchio supports federal lawsuit against Trump", New York Post, A "Top Chef judge and other restaurateurs say President Trump is illegally using his position to build up his own establishments — at their expense.
• Andrew Hessick (Apr 18, 2017), "Standing for the New Plaintiffs in the CREW case", Notice & Comment (Blog), Today, the plaintiffs have filed an amended complaint that adds new plaintiffs who do not face similar [standing] problems.
• Jonathan Taylor (Apr 19, 2017), "There's Unquestionably Standing in the CREW Case. Here's Why.", Take Care (Blog), Since then, much of the public discussion (too much of it, really, especially from conservative and libertarian bloggers) has centered on whether the plaintiff in the case, an ethics watchdog called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (or CREW), has "standing" to bring suit. There has not been nearly enough attention on whether Trump is actually violating the Constitution and imperiling U.S. interests. (Spoiler alert: he is.)
• Steven D. Schwinn (Apr 19, 2017), "CREW Files Amended Emoluments Complaint", Constitutional Law Prof Blog, CREW's standing to sue was sure to be an early issue, even a roadblock, in the case. So the organization added plaintiffs ROC United, a nonprofit corporation with restaurant members and a restaurant owner in its own right, and an individual who books events for Washington hotels. Both new plaintiffs argue that President Trump, by doing and gaining business at his own hotels and restaurants in violation of the Emoluments Clause, is harming their bottom line by taking away business.
• Jonathan H. Adler (Apr 19, 2017), "Why CREW's emoluments clause lawsuit against President Trump still has standing problems", Washington Post, The addition of the new plaintiffs helps satisfy the injury prong because the new plaintiffs may argue that they suffer from unfair competition from Trump-owned properties. Courts often recognize such competitive injury as sufficient for standing, so the CREW suit is unquestionably in better shape now than it was before. ... The question is not merely whether some foreign officials are more likely to stay at the Trump hotel, but whether or not they are more likely to stay at the hotel because this will result in Trump's receipt of an emolument, as opposed to a generalized desire to do things that may curry favor with the president and his administration.
• Michael C. Dorf (Apr 19, 2017), "Competitor Plaintiffs in Emoluments Clause Case Bolster Standing", Take Care (Blog), That said, although Havens remains good law to support CREW's standing in the lower courts, the current Supreme Court might either overrule Havens or (mis)construe it as inapplicable to CREW, if and when the case arrives there. Although lower courts are forbidden from anticipatorily overruling SCOTUS cases on the ground that subsequent doctrinal developments have weakened them, the SCOTUS can of course overrule its prior decisions. Accordingly--and prudently--the CREW complaint has now been amended to add claims by parties that stand to lose money as a consequence of Trump's Emoluments Clause violations: a restaurant association suing on behalf of itself, its member restaurants, and restaurant workers; and Jill Phaneuf, a Washington, D.C.-based events booker who works with non-Trump hotels. The addition of these plaintiffs should make the lawsuit bulletproof on standing grounds.
• Matthew Stephenson (Apr 20, 2017), "CREW's New and Improved Legal Complaint Against Trump", Global Anticorruption Blog, Before CREW filed its suit, I was skeptical about the prospects of a judicial remedy for this alleged Emoluments Clause violation—not because I didn't think that President Trump was in violation of the clause (quite the opposite), but because I didn't think it was realistic to expect that a court would be willing to order the sitting President to rearrange his financial affairs (or hold him in contempt if he didn't). ... The explanation for why the addition of these plaintiffs substantially strengthens the case for standing is fairly straightforward, though a full explanation as to why would require an excursion into questions of legal doctrine that are likely both dull and opaque to most non-lawyers (and many lawyers as well). The short version is that the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted Article III of the Constitution to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts to cases brought by plaintiffs who have suffered a concrete, particularized injury that is traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and could be redressed by a favorable court order; the constitutionally-required injury can't be a general, abstract, or ideological interest in the issue.
• Oversight Committee Requests Documents on Trump Organization's Treatment of Foreign Government Payments (Press Release), Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, Apr 21, 2017, Additional details of the plan to donate profits derived from foreign government payments, however, are still unclear. Meanwhile, recent news accounts have reported that the Trump Organization may have received payments from foreign government sources since President Trump's inauguration.
• Seth Barrett Tillman (Apr 23, 2017), "Business Transactions and President Trump's 'Emoluments' Problem", Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 40 (3): 759–771
• Matthew Stephenson (Apr 25, 2017), "When, If Ever, Does a Favorable Legal or Regulatory Decision Count as an "Emolument"?", Global Anticorruption Blog, On the one hand, it seems obvious that favorable legal or regulatory decisions must count as an emoluments; otherwise, a whole swath of activity that the Emoluments Clauses seem clearly designed to prevent would escape proscription. On the other hand, it seems obvious that favorable legal or regulatory decisions can't count as emoluments; otherwise, the Emoluments Clauses prohibit a whole swath of activity that those clauses seem clearly not intended to cover.
• Julia Harte (Apr 26, 2017), "Exclusive: A New York hotel deal shows how some public pension funds help to enrich Trump", Reuters, Public pension funds in at least seven U.S. states have invested millions of dollars in an investment fund that owns a New York hotel and pays one of President Donald Trump's companies to run it, according to a Reuters review of public records. That arrangement could put Trump at risk of violating an obscure constitutional clause, some legal experts say.
  • Josh Voorhees (Apr 26, 2017), "Donald Trump May Also Be Violating a Different Emoluments Clause", The Slatest
  • Jed Shugerman (Apr 26, 2017), "Reuters: State pension funds paying millions in Emoluments to Trump", Shugerblog, It's also important to take a step back and observe a shocking fact: state officials were risking millions from their employees' pension by investing in a bankruptcy artist fraudster in 2015 — after Trump University had been exposed as a fraud, after the entire American banking industry would not lend him a dollar for the last two decades. Regardless of the emoluments question, this investing strategy was a risky fiduciary breach for a state pension.
• Leah Litman (Apr 26, 2017), "Standing Up For Standing in CREW v. Trump", Take Care (Blog)
• Leah Litman (Apr 27, 2017), "On Standing In CREW v. Trump Part I: Defining The Injury", Take Care (Blog)
• http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/330996-democrats-exploring-lawsuit-against-trump {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Leah Litman (Apr 28, 2017), "On Standing In CREW v. Trump Part II: More Distinctions Without A Difference To Competitor Standing Cases", Take Care (Blog)

May 2017

• Robert G. Natelson (May 11, 2017), "The Original Meaning of 'Emoluments' in the Constitution", Georgia Law Review, 52 (1)
• Joshua Matz (May 11, 2017), "New Hotel-Owner Plaintiff in CREW Emolument Lawsuit", Take Care (Blog), CREW added another plaintiff: Eric Goode, the owner of several famous hotels, restaurants, bars and event spaces in New York.
• Joshua Matz (May 25, 2017), "Trump's Foreign Emoluments: Another Fig Leaf Falls Away", Take Care (Blog), If the Trump Organization thinks that will solve Trump's breach of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, it is mistaken. This plan responds to only a fraction of Trump's emoluments and presents (those given by foreign powers to Trump through hotel rentals). And it is inadequate as a safeguard against emolument violations even in that limited context. The Constitution requires that Trump actually stop receiving foreign presents and emoluments, not that he forge an appearance of avoiding some of them.
• John Mikhail (May 28, 2017), ""Emolument" in Blackstone's Commentaries", Balkinization (Blog), The majority of Blackstone's usages of "emolument" involve benefits other than government salaries or perquisites. They also reflect the broader meaning of the term—"profit, "gain," "benefit," or "advantage"—one finds in the principal eighteenth-century English dictionaries.
  • Jed Shugerman (May 28, 2017), "Mikhail's Blackstone breakthrough: Emoluments meant private benefits", Shugerblog, Mikhail's research shows that emoluments are not limited to "office related payments." In Blackstone's Commentaries, the primary usage of the term included private benefits and advantages. As most judges and legal scholars probably know, Blackstone was one of the most important legal sources for the Founding generation. Founding-era Americans cited Blackstone far more than any other English or American legal scholar.
• "Isn't Some of the Trump Hotel Profit Ours?", New York Times, May 29, 2017, Since Mr. Trump won the election, the hotel has been booked for parties thrown by the governments of Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Kuwait, which moved their events from other hotels to Mr. Trump's.
• Jed Shugerman (May 30, 2017), "George Washington's secret land deal actually strengthens CREW's Emoluments claim [Updated]", Shugerblog, Washington's effort to keep these dealings quiet at least suggests he understood they were politically, legally, and maybe constitutionally problematic.

Jun 2017

• Katherine Rosman (Jun 1, 2017), "Eric Goode, a New York Night-Life Impresario, Takes On Trump", New York Times, Mr. Goode, whose hotels have catered to foreign dignitaries, isn't buying that argument. "You can't say you are going to donate the money from foreign dignitaries because it's their collective entourages. How can you even quantify that?" he said. "The notion that the presidency doesn't benefit your business is really absurd."
• Heather Caygle (Jun 7, 2017), "Democrats to sue Trump over conflicts of interest", Politico, Dozens of House and Senate Democrats plan to sue President Donald Trump in the coming weeks, claiming he is breaking the law by refusing to relinquish ownership of his sprawling real-estate empire while it continues to profit from business with foreign governments.
• Richard Primus (Jun 9, 2017), "Two thoughts on the Government's Motion to Dismiss in the CREW emoluments case", Balkinization (Blog), a suit against an official in his official capacity is not always the same thing as a suit seeking to enjoin that official in the performance of his official duties, as that category is used in Mississippi v. Johnson. The CREW case is the former but not the latter, and the government's brief completely elides the distinction. ... deeming Congress the only enforcer of the Clause seems considerably more problematic. And the natural solution is to let courts enforce the Clause—as they do with most other constitutional rules, after all.
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-09/trump-can-accept-payments-from-foreign-governments-u-s-argues {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://yalejreg.com/nc/three-reactions-to-the-dojs-brief-in-crew-v-trump/ {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-lawsuit-idUSKBN19103Q {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/11/trumps-defense-of-taking-foreign-money-is-historically-illiterate-215244 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/press/2017/061217.pdf {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Marty Lederman (Jun 12, 2017), "How the DOJ Brief in CREW v. Trump Reveals that Donald Trump is Violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause", Take Care (Blog), In [Part III], DOJ asserts a categorical conclusion (p.27)—namely, that the Foreign Emoluments Clause "does not prohibit any company in which the President has any financial interest from doing business with any foreign . . . instrumentality." The most remarkable thing about DOJ's brief, however, is that this conclusion does not follow from DOJ's explanation of the meaning of the term "emolument," nor, for that matter, from any of DOJ's analysis. To the contrary, DOJ's account of the Clause, and of the meaning of the term "emolument," actually demonstrates that the President is violating the FEC, at least with respect to some of the conduct alleged in the CREW complaint.
• Laurence H. Tribe; Joshua Matz (Jun 12, 2017), "Maryland and DC Have Standing to Sue Trump for Emoluments Violations", Take Care (Blog), It is our considered judgment that the constitutional arguments supporting state standing in this litigation are exceptionally powerful. Maryland and DC are proper Emoluments Clause plaintiffs as a matter of precedent and constitutional law. Their case against President Trump should unquestionably be decided on the merits.
• Leah Litman (Jun 12, 2017), "The Two Sides Of Donald Trump, As Reflected in The Government's Motion to Dismiss in the CREW Emoluments Case", Take Care (Blog)
• Leah Litman (Jun 12, 2017), "States And The Emoluments Clause", Take Care (Blog)
• http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/12/532635888/attorneys-general-of-maryland-and-d-c-sue-trump-over-his-hotel {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/12/news/trump-foreign-payments-lawsuit/index.html {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sean-spicer-maryland-dc-lawsuit-against-trump-motivated-by-partisan-politics/article/2625710 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/d-c-maryland-officials-hit-president-trump-lawsuit-n771011 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/12/emoluments-clause-trump-sued-by-maryland-and-dc-attorneys-general.html {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-maryland-dc-trump-lawsuit-20170612-story.html {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/a-lawsuit-attacks-the-marketing-of-the-presidency {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/13/the-attorneys-general-suit-against-trump-may-be-the-most-dangerous-yet/ {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/14/unprecedented-200-congressional-democrats-sue-trump/ {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• http://amp.usatoday.com/story/102830002/ {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-democrats-to-file-emoluments-lawsuit-against-trump/2017/06/13/270e60e6-506d-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Michael C. Dorf (Jun 14, 2017), "Trump Emoluments Argument Mirrors His "Just a Hope" Comey Defense", Take Care (Blog)
• Joshua Matz (Jun 14, 2017), "Trump Is Ushering In A Kleptocracy. That's Why He Is Being Sued", Take Care (Blog)
• Brianne J. Gorod (Jun 14, 2017), "Because President Trump Has Chosen Not To Go to Congress, Members of Congress Must Go to the Courts", Take Care (Blog)
• "Emoluments Lawsuit Is Warranted", The Courant, Jun 18, 2017, The lawsuit doesn't specifically accuse Mr. Trump of corruption, but it claims that Congress was deprived of its constitutional right to decide whether the Trump Organization could receive money from those foreign sources, because Mr. Trump did not clear the payments with them first. "An officeholder ... would not be the sole judge of his own integrity," the lawsuit states.
• Brianne J. Gorod (Jun 19, 2017), "Congressional Standing Is Not an All-or-Nothing Proposition", Take Care (Blog)
• David Fontana (Jun 20, 2017), "Asymmetric Geographical State Standing", Take Care (Blog)
• Simon Stern (Jun 20, 2017), "Presents, Emoluments, and Corruption", Balkinization (Blog)
• Gretchen Frazee (Jun 22, 2017), "How the emoluments clause is being used to sue Trump", PBS Newshour, Tillman goes further than many other scholars and also argues that the emoluments clause does not apply to the president because it is derived from a British law that refers to appointed rather than elected officials. The Department of Justice did not argue this point in its written defense.
• John Mikhail; Trevor Burrus (Jun 22, 2017), "A law professor and CATO Institute fellow tell us if President Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause", WGN Radio (Radio Debate), Moderated by John Williams
• Mike DeBonis (Jun 23, 2017), "On Trump and Russia, Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy says he will stay in his lane", Washington Post, Gowdy said there were Trump-related matters that he did see falling within the Oversight panel's purview — procedures for issuance of security clearances, for instance, and the constitutional prohibition on accepting "emoluments" from foreign benefactors. ... With regard to the emoluments question, Gowdy said he was primarily interested in plumbing the legal implications of the constitutional clause, which maintains that federal officials must not "accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
  "The first challenge to me is understanding the parameters, how has it historically been applied, and then from that, you can determine whether or not you think there's been a breach," he said.
  Gowdy suggested he would like to see Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law professor, and a Republican counterpart on the committee explore the question.
• Eric Segall (Jun 24, 2017), "Members of Congress Have Standing in the Emoluments Suit", Dorf on Law (Blog)
• Zachary Clopton (Jun 26, 2017), "Emoluments and Justiciability", Take Care (Blog)
• Erwin Chemerinsky (Jun 26, 2017), "Trump's 'emoluments' defense argues he can violate the Constitution with impunity. That can't be right", Los Angeles Times, Trump's position is that the federal courts can hear none of these suits because no one has "standing" to sue him for these constitutional violations. But that can't be right: It cannot be that the president can violate the Constitution with impunity and no court has the authority to hold him accountable. ... The president's position is that none of these plaintiffs fits the legal criteria of "standing" — that is, they can't claim to have been personally injured so they cannot sue. But it is hard to imagine who would have standing if not these plaintiffs. Accepting Trump's argument would effectively mean that no one would ever be able to sue over violations of the emoluments clauses.
• Paul Barrett; Dune Lawrence (Jun 27, 2017), "The Litigation Storm Around President Trump", Bloomberg Businessweek, Liberal activists are thrilled to be suing President Donald Trump. "The reason you're seeing a proliferation of lawsuits against President Trump is that he brought his lifelong contempt for the rule of law with him to the Oval Office," says Norman Eisen, the chief White House ethics lawyer for President Barack Obama.
  Eisen now heads a watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which—along with Democratic members of Congress, the state of Maryland, and the District of Columbia—are suing Trump for violating the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause. That long-dormant anti-corruption provision forbids public officials from accepting payments from foreign governments. The suits accuse Trump of profiting from private businesses such as his Washington hotel, which has been patronized by officials from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other countries.
• William J. Watkins Jr. (Jun 27, 2017), "The Emoluments of Sore Losers", National Review, In Hoyt v. United States (1850), the U.S. Supreme Court defined emolument as "embracing every species of compensation or pecuniary profit derived from a discharge of the duties of the office." Accordingly, President Trump argues that "emolument" must be understood as a prohibited benefit arising from the services a federal officer provides to a foreign power, either on account of his office (making a decision favorable to a foreign government for pay) or as an employee/agent of the foreign power. He further argues that the foreign-emoluments clause does not prohibit his companies from engaging in market transactions on the same terms as any other citizen or private business.
  • Charles P. Pierce (Jun 29, 2017), "Conservatives Are Now Defending Trump, Inc., Because Why Not?", Esquire, The essay by one William J. Watkins, Jr., seeks to pooh-pooh the president*'s obvious attempts to monetize his office in apparent violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause, which is the subject of current legal action. He begins, however, by demonstrating a charming belief in the essential good faith of a guy who regularly stiffed glaziers and masons who couldn't afford to sue him.
• https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/ {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• John McColgan (Jun 28, 2017), "Political Philosophy:'Emolument' debate heating up", Wallowa County Cheitain, Less than six months into his presidency, examples already abound of instances where Trump could be in violation of the Constitution's emoluments prohibitions. Until recently, the First Lady resided at Trump Towers in New York, which necessitated that the Secret Service pay with our tax dollars directly into Trump's pocket for the rental of two floors there. And on many weekends since his election, Trump has brought his entire publicly paid entourage, along with national media and international VIPs vying for his attention and favor, to stay at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
  The growing appearance of the quid pro quo is also troubling. The head of China's government visited Trump in Florida a few weeks after China had announced it had awarded Trump 38 trademarks, which was an extremely lucrative and timely advance of Trump's business interests in that market.
• Joy Shrum (Jun 28, 2017), "State AG explains Trump lawsuit", TheBayNet.com, Attorney General Frosh alleges President Trump's wide-ranging business entanglements violate the Constitution's Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses. "Elected leaders must serve the people, and not their personal financial interests. That is the indispensable foundation of a democracy. We cannot treat a president's ongoing violations of the Constitution and disregard for the rights of the American people as the new and acceptable status quo. The president, above all other elected officials, must have on the interests of Americans at the heart of every decision."
• Max Greenwood (Jun 28, 2017), "Obama ethics czar: Trump fundraiser at his DC hotel 'illegal'", The Hill, Eisen argued that by allowing Trump to hold a fundraising event for his personal reelection campaign at the hotel, he is violating both the emoluments clause and the terms of his real estate company's lease with the federal government.
  Trump's D.C. hotel has been a source of controversy for the president in the past, particularly over whether foreign officials and dignitaries could patronize the hotel to curry favor in Trump's White House.

External links

• CREW v. Trump, Docket Report, vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., Jan 23, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Original Complaint, Docket 1 (PDF), vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., Jan 23, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • First Amended Complaint, Docket 22 (PDF), vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., Apr 18, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Second Amended Complaint, Docket 28 (PDF), vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., May 10, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Memorandum in support of motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction and for Failure to State a Claim, Docket 35 (PDF), vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., Jun 9, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Brief for Scholar Seth Barrett Tillman as Amicus Curiae in Support of the Defendant, Docket 37, Attachment 1 (PDF), vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., Jun 16, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Order granting 37 Letter Motion for Leave to File Document, Docket 39, vol. No. 1:17-cv-00458, S.D.N.Y., Jun 28, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• D.C. and Maryland v. Trump, Docket Report, vol. No. 8:17-cv-01596, D.M.D., Jun 12, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Complaint, Docket 1 (PDF), vol. No. 8:17-cv-01596, D.M.D., Jun 12, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Blumenthal v. Trump, Docket Report, vol. No. 1:17-cv-01154, D.D.C., Jun 14, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Complaint, Docket 1 (PDF), vol. No. 1:17-cv-01154, D.D.C., Jun 14, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Notice of Appearance by Elizabeth Bonnie Wydra on behalf of All Plaintiffs, Docket 2, vol. No. 1:17-cv-01154, D.D.C., Jun 14, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Notice of Appearance by Brian Rene Frazelle on behalf of All Plaintiffs, Docket 3, vol. No. 1:17-cv-01154, D.D.C., Jun 14, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Notice of Appearance by Brianne Jenna Gorod on behalf of All Plaintiffs, Docket 4, vol. No. 1:17-cv-01154, D.D.C., Jun 14, 2017 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)