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Maryland and D.C. Sue Trump Over His Private Businesses Maryland and D.C. Sue Trump Over His Private Businesses
(about 3 hours later)
In a new legal challenge to President Trump, Maryland and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that his failure to shed his private businesses has undermined public trust and violated constitutional bans against self-dealing. In a new legal challenge to President Trump, the Democratic attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Monday claiming that the president’s failure to shed his businesses has undermined public trust and violated constitutional bans against self-dealing.
The lawsuit, filed in a Maryland federal court, makes many of the same arguments in a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a Washington watchdog organization in a New York federal court. But some legal experts said it rested on stronger legal ground because the plaintiffs were governmental entities, which could have stronger standing to sue the president. The complaint, filed in a Maryland federal court, makes many of the same arguments in a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a Washington watchdog organization in a New York federal court. But some legal experts said the new suit may progress farther because the plaintiffs were government entities, which could have stronger standing to sue the president.
The complaint opens uncharted legal territory. No state has accused a president of violating the emoluments clauses of the Constitution. One of those clauses bans federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments. A second prohibits the president from accepting economic benefits from the federal or state governments, other than his salary. It is part of a broader, coordinated effort by the president’s critics to force him to defend his continued ownership of his business empire. Some congressional Democrats are expected to file a third lawsuit arguing the president’s behavior is also unconstitutional.
Because Mr. Trump continues to own and profit from his business empire, the lawsuit claims, it is unclear whether he is making decisions in the country’s best interest or out of “self-interested motivations grounded in the international and domestic business dealings in which President Trump’s personal fortune is at stake.” The Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts or emoluments from foreign governments. It also prohibits the president from accepting economic benefits or emoluments from the federal or state governments, other than his salary. But in 230 years, no court has interpreted what exactly constitutes an emolument.
It argues that businesses owned by Mr. Trump divert customers away from businesses the District of Columbia and Maryland either own, license or tax, harming those governments financially. For example, it contends, the Trump International Hotel in Washington competes with facilities owned or operated by the city’s government, including the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, its armory and its Carnegie Library. It also competes with a government-owned conference center in Bethesda, Md., and a resort in Prince George’s County, Md., that generates tax revenue for the state, the suit claims. Brian E. Frosh, Maryland’s attorney general, said if the lawsuit progressed to the discovery phase, he and Mr. Racine would seek to obtain the president’s tax returns to gauge the extent of his business dealings. “It is unprecedented that the American people must question day after day whether decisions are made and actions are taken to benefit the United States or to benefit Donald Trump,” he said. “The president’s conflicts of interest threaten our democracy.”
The suit alleges that the president has misused his position to increase patronage of his family’s hotels and the restaurants in them by foreign diplomats and others. Mr. Trump and his family members have frequented the Trump hotel, in the renovated Old Post Office, and room prices there have shot up since the election, the complaint states. Although Mr. Trump’s businesses pay taxes, the effect is a financial loss to the governments, it asserts. The Justice Department had no immediate response. But in a brief filed last week in response to the New York case, the department argued that the earlier lawsuit should be dismissed because the emoluments clauses were never intended to prohibit a president from owning a business while in office. Even if the president had violated those prohibitions, the department’s lawyers contended, it is up to Congress, not a federal judge, to act. They also argued that the plaintiffs had shown no financial harm.
In the earlier New York case, the Justice Department has asked a federal judge to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the emoluments clauses do not prohibit presidents from owning businesses. That lawsuit was initiated by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. In a statement, the Republican National Committee called the new lawsuit “absurd.” Lindsay Jancek, a R.N.C. spokeswoman said, “The actions by the attorneys general represent the kind of partisan grandstanding voters across the country have come to despise.”
In a 70-page brief filed Friday, the Justice Department also contended that even if Mr. Trump’s business interests did violate the Constitution, it would be up to Congress, not a federal court, to devise a remedy. Monday’s complaint claims that businesses owned by Mr. Trump divert customers away from businesses in the District of Columbia and Maryland either own, license or tax, harming those governments financially. For example, it contends, the Trump International Hotel in Washington competes with facilities owned or operated by the city’s government, including the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, its armory and its Carnegie Library. It also competes with a government-owned conference center in Bethesda, Md., and a resort in Prince George’s County, Md., that generates tax revenue for the state, the suit claims.
The department also argued that the plaintiffs in that case, who include a hotel and restaurant owner, had not demonstrated any revenue loss as a result of Mr. Trump’s businesses. Karl A. Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, told reporters Monday that just as states intervened to challenge Mr. Trump’s efforts to limit travel from Muslim countries, he hoped to force the court to step in and evaluate Mr. Trump’s business entanglements.
The Justice Department argues that the emoluments clauses should be narrowly construed to prohibit the president from accepting gifts or payments in his official capacity. It does not extend to ordinary commercial arms-length transactions like hotel stays, which benefit the Trump Organization, the family company now run by the president’s adult sons. “Congress has given the president a total pass,” he said. “State attorney generals are serving as a necessary check and balance in the Trump era where others failed.”
Some legal experts said the Maryland suit crossed a new legal threshold because the Maryland and District of Columbia governments are legally considered “coequal sovereigns” with the president, making them the strongest possible opponents in the constitutional argument over emoluments. The suit also claims that the president has used his position to help his businesses. His visits to the Trump hotel in the renovated Old Post Office have raised the facility’s profile, it claims, and put competitors at a disadvantage. Although Mr. Trump’s businesses pay taxes, it states that overall, his business interests threaten revenue on which Maryland and the District of Columbia depend.
“It represents an important new front in the emoluments war,” said Norman Eisen, chairman of the board of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, whose lawyers are co-counsel in the case. Moreover, the suit claims, the president’s business entanglements create an “intolerable dilemma” for governments like Maryland and the District of Columbia. If jurisdictions refuse zoning exemptions or requests from the Trump Organization, it claims, the president could retaliate by seeking to cut federal funds to those jurisdictions.
The complaint notes that in 1776, Maryland adopted its own ban on emoluments, and that the prohibitions against corruption written into the federal Constitution were inducements to Maryland and other states to support the union. I.
The plaintiffs are hoping to force Mr. Trump to release his tax returns should either of the lawsuits reach the discovery phrase. The Justice Department would most likely take such a fight to the Supreme Court, legal experts said. The Justice Department argues that the emoluments clauses should be narrowly construed to prohibit the president from accepting gifts or payments in his official capacity. It does not extend to ordinary commercial arms-length transactions like hotel stays or approvals of trademark applications, the department contends. The president’s defenders claim he has taken every reasonable step to distance himself from the Trump Organization, the family company now run by the president’s adult sons.
Some critics of the president said the Maryland suit crossed a new legal threshold because the Maryland and District of Columbia governments are legally considered “coequal sovereigns” with the president, making them the strongest possible opponents in the constitutional argument over emoluments. The lawsuit suggests that Maryland has a special standing to sue because the anticorruption prohibitions written into the Constitution helped endure Maryland to support the union.
The complaint “represents an important new front in the emoluments war,” said Norman Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, whose lawyers are co-counsel in the case. CREW is also the original plaintiff in the New York lawsuit.
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