House Democrats had their particular emoluments lawsuit dismissed outright at the DC Circuit over lack of standing.
A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit from Congressional Democrats who accused President Donald Trump of violating the Constitution by receiving profits from foreign governments' spending at his luxury Washington hotel and other businesses.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision did not address the legality of Trump's business dealings, but held that the more than 200 Democratic senators and House members who banded together in 2017 to bring the suit against the president lacked legal standing to do so.
The unanimous ruling from an ideologically diverse three-judge panel suggested that if the House or Senate had formally authorized the suit, it may have been allowed to proceed, but the lawmakers acting as plaintiffs in the case did not have standing to pursue it on their own.
"Only an institution can assert an institutional injury," the court wrote in its brief, 12-page decision.
Trump quickly lauded the decision.
"We just won the big emoluments case," the president told reporters on the south lawn of the White House as he departed for a trip to North Carolina. "It was a total win... It was another phony case and we won it, three to nothing."
"Another win just in. Nervous Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress sued me, thrown out. This one unanimous, in the D.C. Circuit," he added later in a post to his Twitter account.
The lawmakers could seek review by the full bench of the D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court, but it seems more likely that the battle over Trump's private businesses' receipts from foreign sources will continue through other cases currently pending at two other federal appeals courts. Lawyers for the Congressional Democrats signaled they may continue the fight beyond Friday's ruling.
“We're disappointed in the panel's decision and are considering next steps," said Elizabeth Wydra, the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center and a member of the legal team that helped represent Democrats in the case. "It is important to recognize that today’s ruling is not a decision on the merits. The Court of Appeals did not in any way approve of President Trump’s repeated and flagrant violations of the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause.
This was always the longest of the shots against Trump's self-dealing, the latest of which is news that the Secret Service is regularly paying Trump's hotels $650 a night.
President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service for the rooms agents use while protecting him at his luxury properties — billing U.S. taxpayers at rates as high as $650 per night, according to federal records and people who have seen receipts.
Those charges, compiled here for the first time, show that Trump has an unprecedented — and largely hidden — business relationship with his own government. When Trump visits his clubs in Palm Beach, Fla., and Bedminster, N.J., the service needs space to post guards and store equipment.
Trump’s company says it charges only minimal fees. But Secret Service records do not show that.
At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, the Secret Service was charged the $650 rate dozens of times in 2017, and a different rate, $396.15, dozens more times in 2018, according to documents from Trump’s visits.
And at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, the Secret Service was charged $17,000 a month to use a three-bedroom cottage on the property, an unusually high rent for homes in that area, according to receipts from 2017. Trump’s company billed the government even for days when Trump wasn’t there.
These payments appear to contradict the Trump Organization’s own statements about what it charges members of his government entourage. “If my father travels, they stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping,” Trump’s son Eric said in a Yahoo Finance interview last year.
Trump scams US taxpayers, and he takes foreign money for pay-for-play schemes. That's never been in doubt, but the legal struggle is designed to make sure it never is settled.
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