News

What If China Paid Trump While In Office But The Supreme Court Said The Question Was Moot? It did, and they did? Well how about that.

. . . For starters, we need to emphasize again that Trump’s getting money from foreign sources is not simply a paperwork detail, it’s a flat out violation of the US Constitution, which Republicans used to say was a pretty big deal. The “foreign emoluments clause” ( Article I, Section 9, clause 8) is pretty clear on the matter:

“[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], 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.”

“Emolument” is simply a ye olde word for an “advantage, profit, or gain received as a result of one’s employment or one’s holding of office,” and it has generally been interpreted as a ban on taking any gifts or payments from a foreign. The clause very much applies to presidents, and prior to Trump, it was taken quite seriously. As the report notes, John F. Kennedy had to turn down Ireland’s symbolic offer of honorary Irish citizenship, and Barack Obama was allowed to accept the Nobel Peace Prize “only after the DOJ determined that the selection process was independent from the influence of the Norwegian government.” (It was a 20-page decision.) And even then, he donated to charity the $1.4 million that went with the honor.

. . .

Trump just bulldozed right past such petty concerns, and because he was such a tornado of chaos and scandal (way off the Fujita scale, what with the bulldozer being tossed around in the whirlwind too), his Constitution-defying business operations never got him in any trouble. Even when good government groups tried to sue to get federal courts to pay attention, the suits got thrown out of court because judges said the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, since Trump’s defiance of the Constitution hadn’t directly harmed them.