Attorneys general hope to force Trump financial disclosures

The attorneys general aren’t the first to sue Trump over emoluments. Just days after Trump’s inauguration in January, the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. Since then, a restaurant group and two individuals in the hotel industry have joined as plaintiffs.

The Justice Department said Friday that those plaintiffs did not suffer in any way and had no standing to sue, and that it was unconstitutional to sue the president in his official capacity.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer noted that response at a White House briefing Monday.

“This lawsuit today is just another iteration of the case that was filed by that group CREW, filed actually by the same lawyers,” Spicer said. “So it’s not hard to conclude that partisan politics may be one of the motivations behind the suit.”

But the two Democratic attorneys general say their lawsuit is unique, because they are suing as sovereign entities on behalf of residents of Maryland and Washington, D.C. They say the Trump Hotel in the nation’s capital affects business in the Washington area.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh also underscored that the framers of the Constitution included the clause for good reason.

“If the Justice Department is right, the emoluments clause has no meaning whatsoever,” Frosh said. “The president can stand over here with his president of the United States hat and he’s not allowed to take payments, but he takes a step over here and puts on his businessman hat they can funnel as much money to him as they want. You got no emoluments clause there, and it’s absolutely clear that the framers of the Constitution intended that to protect us from presidential corruption.”

The two attorneys general also hope the case will build a record against Trump through the discovery process in the court case. Frosh said the president has discussed some of his business dealings on the campaign trail, noting Trump’s mention that a state-owned Chinese bank has office space in Trump Tower in New York.

“He bragged about that on the campaign trial,” Frosh said. “I don’t think he’s giving it to them for free, and there are many sources that have given us information about the payments that he has received. We’ll have a lot more after we get discovery.”

Racine noted that the emoluments clause hasn’t been tested by the Supreme Court or federal circuit courts.

“And we think that our case will also further develop the record and the law for the court, which obviously will ultimately be the final arbiter, a necessary cog in the check-and-balance wheel,” Racine said.

The lawsuit also focuses on the fact that Trump chose to retain ownership of his company when he became president. Trump said he was shifting assets into a trust managed by his sons to eliminate potential conflicts of interest.

If a federal judge allows the case to proceed, Racine and Frosh say they will demand copies of Trump’s personal tax returns in court to gauge the extent of his foreign business dealings.

“Mr. Trump is unique in American history in violating the emoluments clause,” Frosh said. “There is no other president whose domestic and foreign investments, the entanglements, have been so bound up with our policy and our interests, and he is the only president who has refused to disclose the extent of his holdings and interests, so, yes, it will be a subject of our lawsuit. We will be seeking that information.”

Brian Witte, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Attorneys general hope to force Trump financial disclosures

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