It’s easy to forget that Donald Trump was Impeachable the moment he took the Oath of Office (I mean outside of the fact that an Impeachable Offense is whatever Congress says it is) because of his straight up violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
What most people don’t know is that to Constitutional Scholars there is no “Emoluments Clause” per se and instead there are three clauses they distinguish as the Ineligibility Clause (Article I, Section 6, Clause 2), the Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8), and the Domestic Emoluments Clause ((Article II, Section 1, Clause 7).
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, 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.
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
Clearly the issues of concern involve the Foreign Emoluments Clause and revolve around the exorbitant fees charged and paid by Foreign Governments to Trump for use of his D.C. Hotel as well as the money Trump’s Organization is receiving from its overseas property holdings.
Impeachable. Day One.
Since the Inauguration some organizations have sought to hold Trump accountable for this violation of his Oath, or at least get him to divest his problematic holdings and today they got a boost.
Judge denies Trump’s request for stay in emoluments case
By Jonathan O’Connell, Ann E. Marimow, and David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post
November 2, 2018
A federal judge on Friday denied President Trump’s request to stay a lawsuit alleging he is in violation of the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments, a decision that paves the way for plaintiffs to seek information from his business as it relates to his D.C. hotel.
U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., denied the Justice Department’s request that he pause the case in order to allow a higher court to intervene. And he sharply questioned the president’s position that his business does not improperly accept gifts or payments — called emoluments — as defined by the Constitution.
By Trump’s analysis, Messitte wrote, the term emoluments is the subject of such “substantial grounds of disagreement” that payments his business received from foreign governments could not qualify. The judge did not agree: “The Court finds this a dubious proposition.”
Messitte ordered the plaintiffs, the attorneys general for D.C. and Maryland, to submit a schedule for discovery — the process of producing evidence for the case — within 20 days.That decision is subject to appeal.
The judge previously limited discovery to information related to the president’s D.C. hotel.
…
This is the second civil case in which Trump’s business is now subject to discovery, after Trump agreed Tuesday to produce portions of his calendar from 2007 and 2008 in a defamation lawsuit brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.Trump still owns his company, although he says he has stepped back from day-to-day control.
The Trump Organization has held several large events paid for by foreign governments at Trump’s D.C. hotel and reported about $150,000 in what it called “foreign profits” last year.
The Constitution bars federal officials from taking emoluments from any “King, Prince, or Foreign State.” The Founding Fathers’ intent had been to stop U.S. ambassadors overseas — emissaries from a new, poor, fragile country — from being bought off by jewels or payments from wealthy European states.
Who needs Mueller if you have political will instead of craven cowardly corruption in Congress? The crimes are obvious and freely admitted.
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