https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause

"The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that ... restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress."

I suspect we will hear a lot more about the "consent of Congress" in the next 6 months if this has any merit.

> The financial conflict statute prohibits federal employees from participating in matters where they could enrich themselves. It applies to everyone in the executive branch, from the lowliest file clerk up to the White House chief of staff – except for the president and vice president.

Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/07/can-congress...

You could try to convince Congress to re-apply the rules, but that's a different discussion.

The fact that Congress has specifically granted permission under the Emoluments Clause to Presidents, at the latter's request, while the conflict statute was in effect wouldbsuggest stronglynthat neither past Presidents, nor, more importantly, the Congress has viewed the non-application of the conflict statute to the President as a grant of permission under the Emoluments Clause that makes more specific grants unnecessary.

OTOH, absent coverage under the conflict statute or some other statute establishing judicial remedies, there may an argument that there is no such remedy for a Presidential violation of the clause, and that the only remedy is via impeachment. That's probably the biggest weakness in an Emoluments Clause lawsuit.

On the gripping hand, a court ruling to the effect that the only remedy is by impeachment may create additional political pressure on Congress, which would probably have value to those bringing the claim, perhaps moreso than a judicial remedy that, e.g., forced Trump to give up past gains and avoid future gains through divestment.

The trouble is that impeachment is the responsibility Congress, and it would be a brave Republican congressman who would vote to impeach a Republican president right now.

Constitution has a clause that prohibits it for any public official including the president (assuming for the moment that it is the meaning of the emoluments clause), unless Congress specifically authorizes it.

Congress additionally passed a law - 18 U.S. Code § 202 and § 208 - that regulates conflicts of interest among government officials. Its domain intersects with the Emoluments Clause somewhat, but it is not an implementation of the Emoluments Clause. It says that certain actions by people other than the president are illegal. Insofar as it intersects with Emoluments Clause, it is at best redundant (although even then it defines clear penalties, so not really).

But there's nothing in it authorizing the president to receive emoluments. § 202 does contain language excluding certain people from the categories of "government officer" and "government employee", which are the target of § 208; but this simply means that § 208, and prohibitions in it specifically, do not apply to those people. In other words, the law doesn't say anything about them. It most certainly doesn't contain any language explicitly authorizing emoluments. Here, see for yourself:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/208 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/202

If we look at other past cases where the Emoluments Clause had to be dealt with, Congress specifically authorized such things, with clear verbiage to that effect. For example, here's the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7342

Note the language: "The Congress consents to ..."

There's nothing even remotely similar in the law we are discussing.

The only real question for the courts here is whether receiving payment for goods and services from a foreign government qualifies as emolument or not. The originalist interpretation is in favor of that - this is one of those clauses in the Constitution where the Founders wrote a great deal about why it was there, and it's clear that their concerns were broad rather than narrow (preventing "foreign corruption" of all kinds).

1 - Theodore Roosevelt. Nobel Peace Prize. He accept both the cash award and the medal.

2 - Barack Obama. Nobel Peace Prize. He accepted only the medal.

... and most interestingly ...

3 - Ronald Reagan. Receipt of pension payments from the state of California as a former Governor and California pension plan participant.

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/198...

The way I read the analysis of Ronald Reagan's situation, any benefit from a domestic state, city, or county could potentially fall afoul of the emoluments clause. Think here of any local property tax rebate from a city to entice a Trump business to build a hotel or set up shop. Maybe even a tax rebate / waiver from prior business development agreement could fall afoul. Who knows how deep this particular rabbit hole could go.

I also was puzzling over Hobby Lobby the other day and I realized that Trump's situation vis-a-vie the emoluments clause could be parallel to Hobby Lobby versus the ACA. Hobby Lobby wanted out of the mandate for birth control and the Supreme Court sided with them because Hobby Lobby was a closely held corporation; close enough where the owners' religious beliefs could be infringed upon by ACA birth control mandates on the corporation they controlled.

I believe the Trump empire is a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby. Per the Supreme Court a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby has a personal connection unlike widely held corporation. Simply saying payments made to Trump's corporation is a sufficient separation from the person to avoid the emoluments clause may not be a strong argument for those arguing Trump's side.

Edit: IANAL, but rather a politics major.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10...

If the Dems thought they could 'get him' on his ownership of whatever, they would have been pressing it already.

I think as it stands, he's on decent legal footing.

Which admittedly is a little ridiculous, you'd think the Prez. would not be above conflict of interest.

Aside from that, Trump says ridiculous things, but they are mostly in the vein of ridiculous populism. It makes him look ridiculous to most people, I don't know why he does it, that said, none of his policies so far are as gonzo as his ridiculous rhetoric.

Give it time. Maybe he'll cool down, or maybe he'll do something impeachable.

I predict: tons and tons of PR snafus, but nothing illegal.

I predict something illegal

> If the Dems thought they could 'get him' on his ownership of whatever, they would have been pressing it already.

Impeachment is sort of a legal process but it's really political, while Republicans control congress and he hasn't sunk with the base impeachment won't happen.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/24/14358654/tr...

The interesting thing about this is that it's a bipartisan affair as far as party affiliations go: the two main guys behind it are the ethics people for Bush and Obama, respectively.

I would be somewhat surprised if the Congress ended up doing it, but seeing how spineless they already are wrt Trump even where he contradicts them, not super surprised.

My point, rather, is that, should such a thing happen, it would be a bona fide constitutional crisis. If two branches of government are openly in defiance of parts of the Constitution, it becomes a free for everyone else, as well. Secession would suddenly be on the table for real - after all, the Constitution is what makes the Union, so if the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land, then the states could reasonably argue that they aren't bound to the Union in any sensible way. Or they could simply state that per the Emoluments Clause, they consider the president illegitimate from there on, and so no EO and no act of Congress signed by him has force of law on their territory. Or even invoke the 9th and the 10th Amendments in a full-on literalist vein (stealing the book from fringe factions of the right), and just claim that the feds simply don't have most powers that they claim as well.

This is all very far-fetched, but in the event of an open defiance of SCOTUS by the other two branches, we'd already be in the realm of far-fetched things, so the impossible becomes possible, and unlikely becomes probable.

Donald Trump is the man in office. Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with anything.

However Clinton may or may not violated the Constitution is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether Trump is violating it now.

Seems to work like a charm to derail conversation about the real topic at hand.

Because we're trying to ascertain if the complainers are genuinely principled or partisan hacks. I've a feeling most of them would be turning a blind eye if it wasn't trump.

For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument.

I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this person still be saying the same thing?" If the answer is no, I ignore that person. This cuts out about 97% of all political discussion and saves a lot of time.

I just think it's odd to say that Trump should be impeached for something his opponent did while in office.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046

For context, Doug Band is a very close Clinton associate and he's discussing an initiative apparently launched by Chelsea Clinton to investigate money within the Clinton Foundation (which is also mentioned in some of the other Podesta emails).

He isn't being impeached because his party controls both houses.

You need to be more specific. If you mean the emoluments clause, I think it's more accurate to say that it's hard to verify whether he meets "the requirements set forth in the Constitution." If you know of an instance of his business accepting a gift from a "king, prince or foreign state" since he's assumed office, then he's actually in violation.

> He isn't being impeached because his party controls both houses.

There is also that. Although I think a not insignificant fraction of that party would much prefer Pence, and if they were going to oust him doing it as far from the next election as possible would seem preferable.

he barely slid in a electoral vote disaster, despite the electoral vote being meant to be used against men like Trump

Did you not pay attention to the election at all?

Looking at a number of swing states with significant numbers of electoral votes can, though. The margin of victory was just over 1% in Florida (29EV). It's less 1% in Pennsylvania (20EV) and Wisconsin (10EV). Michigan (16EV) was less than .25%.

That's 75EV won by that thin a margin. Half that could have swung the election.

(And yes, you can play this game the other way, but the only state Clinton won that was that closely contested was... New Hampshire, 4EV)

The election was quite close. Trump's electoral victory was very thin.

That's the state of affairs to be expected when the EC winner loses the popular vote.

He could have lost FL _or_ OH and still won.

So, did Trump win by a lot when you take out California and New York? Yes. He also lost by a lot when you take out the South. Population is the only fair metric for weighting regions against each other. The South is not entitled to control everyone else's lives, especially since they're the damned region that demanded extra Representatives for their slaves.

Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in place that actively punishes voter suppression. Voters per inhabitant ratio and election turnout could be used to penalize states with low engagement to ensure voter suppression does not occur.

It, however, removes the penalty for suppressing votes because the remaining votes continue to have a fixed weight.

Also, the "CA and NY would run the US" is an extremely weak argument. It's logically equivalent to saying that Texas and Oklahoma are currently running the US, since their electoral votes are sufficient to swap the winner from Trump to Clinton.

Actually, I don't think it's equivalent, since basically no Congressional majority or Presidency has been won without the South for the past 50 or so years. You can actually estimate which party will be dominant in an American party system by looking at who consistently holds the South, irrespective of how other regions vote.

So California and the Northeast can consistently vote one way, and it basically just doesn't matter if the South happens to disagree.

How's that a landslide victory?

Payments in exchange for regular business which would have been engaged in anyway would seem not to apply, although there's disturbing room for corruption there.

"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." [1]

Add to that:

- The lack of case law or Congressional guidance;

- George Washington receiving and accepting "two gifts from officials of the French government" without asking for nor receiving any Congressional consent [2]; and

- Almost every Founding Father from the South operating their plantations while in public service.

I think it's safe to say (at least as a non-Constitutional scholar) that this clause is far from definitive on anything. Please note that I am not defending Trump's behavior nor saying this clause cannot be interpreted to apply. I'm saying we cannot comment on this with any reasonable degree of certainty.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/11/17/would-trumps...

What nation, looking to create a favorable deal of some kind with the US, would allow a Trump project to languish in frustrating red tape -- or allow a Trump project to lose out to a competitor in cases where the government is the decision-maker? What would the informal Trumpian chatter be like around that international negotiating table?

Whether it does or not is ultimately something that'll have to be decided in court.

U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8. states:

"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." [1]

U.S. Const. art. II, § 1 cl., 7 states:

"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." [2]

There isn't a lot of case law surrounding these clauses [3] nor guidance from Congress. It could be an impeachable offense, though frankly that's true of anything. Impeachment is a political, not judicial, process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-is-the-emolumen...

Nope. They've had lawyers on this for a while, and I think he's ok on it.

FYI - do you know how many Republican secretly wished that Trump were 'gone'? Probably most of them. He's a) a loose cannon and b) not actually a conservative on many issues.

I think he's legally in the clear on his ownership issues.

I would hope so, because frankly Trump is such a loon that I would rather Mike "electrocute the gay away" Pence, but...

Sigh.

It is not "breaking precedent". George Washington kept his farm.

It's entirely unreasonable to expect a regular citizen to give up his business simply because he's elected to public office. Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.

Owning a farm is a little different to being involved in sprawling international ventures that leave you open to pressure from foreign powers.

Consider that just the knowledge of that, which might not be more than he might read in the papers, could very well cause him to adjust his policies either in the hope of favours, or even just subconsciously to avoid causing trouble for them.

Beyond that there is plenty of scope for outright blackmail. E.g. what if some Chinese representative whisper in the ear of some Trump employee that significant legal problems might appear as long as China's relationship with the US is still strained over Trumps apparent lack of support for the One China principle. They'd not even need to mention his company, for that matter, or contact him.

A slightly pointed press release about how there will be a crackdown on companies believed to not represent interests that don't fully support the One China principle would work too.

Chances are we'll never find out how Trumps policies are affected (or not) by foreign interference, but it'd be naive to think that there aren't multiple powers that have people considering how they can take advantage of Trumps business ventures presence or prospective interests in their country to curry favour with him or try to pressure him right now.

I know if I was running a country, then at this point I'd have a whole team on looking into opportunities, because even though it'd be rather unethical I'd want something in my back pocket in case Trump were to do something unpredictable that'd harm our interests. I'm sure there are plenty of regimes with less scruples about unethical methods.

Since it is a pledge, it also supposes that his word has any value. Anyone who looked at his business or charity dealings knows that his promises are worthless.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plan-to-donate...

This an outright lie.

It also isn't lying if the person saying it believes it to be true.

"No, sir. I did not lie in my CV. I _believe_ that this funny looking letter I received from my mother some time ago means that I have Ph.D from MIT"

Some people believe their arguments are so strong that the other person must have been secretly convinced, and is therefore lying.

Setting aside for the moment that people often believe their arguments are far more convincing than they actually are, people can and do believe anything, so a better reason than that is necessary to accuse people of lying.

On the contrary, it's explicitly legal as nothing the President does is considered a conflict. It's like that because otherwise everything and anything could be a construed a conflict of interest. In the interests of not having a continual flood of lawsuits the top of the executive branch is considered to be exempt from conflict of interest laws that otherwise affect the rest of government.

Putting on my non-partisan hat, though, I am nervous about the precedent of removing a president from office iff it is seen as a partisan move. The removal of Trump without widespread Republican support (as opposed to a small defecting faction) might be seen as precedent for a higher frequency of partisan impeachments - a danger to be weighed against (in my not-very-objective opinion) the dangers of a Trump presidency.

Downvote only if the comment detracts from the discussion, not just if you disagree.

Impeach only if the President commits crimes while in office, not just if you dislike the President's politics more than the VP's.

We already have a one-party state in which the Republican Party plays partisan hardball, as much as possible, to prevent elections from altering their control over the government. Why not fight back for once?

Pence is no foreign policy wiz but I'm not worried about him precipitating huge geopolitical shifts against America's interests.

If nothing else, it at least provides some stability.

So yes, Trump stepping down wouldn't mean much difference when it comes to his role as a head of government since his team seems to be handling that, but the head of state is still a very important role. Don't forget, he said,

"I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything[,]"

essentially describing sexual assault, emphasized by me. Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity, the fact he was a reality-TV star. Having such an individual represent the nation is an embarrassment and does not inspire confidence in the nation nor does it abroad. Understand, no international body would respect Trump if he weren't the President. He does not prop us up as a country, he receives respect because we prop him up, and even then, he still depreciates his image by trying to project and strengthen his fragile pride and by involving himself in frivolous engagements on Twitter.

So yes, having a different head of state would be beneficial for us, at least in our view. It would not make much of a difference in terms of actual policy, but it would give us with a better representative, which isn't a difficult bar to exceed.

EDIT: I almost forgot, despite the politics of it, I do personally feel that a conflict of interest as a President is detrimental to the role as the head of government. We have already seen for example his orders on DAPL, which he still owns some shares of, a direct conflict of interest. And worse, of course, there are his foreign investments, which is worse from a national security standpoint. Sorry, but a head of government should represent us, not their own personal financial interests. You don't even need all my feeling about Trump as a figurehead, although that is important, but his conflicts of interests are a significant issue with him as an elected official.

Which is pretty much exactly how you would expect a "I have no idea what I'm doing but I don't want to fuck it up so I'll fill my cabinet with people who know what they're doing and let them do their thing" administration to work.

>Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity, the fact he was a reality-TV star. Having such an individual represent the nation is an embarrassment and does not inspire confidence in the nation nor does it abroad.

Are these seriously that much more important than how well the job gets done. On some level I don't care if the president is a member of the goddamn KKK if the job gets done well enough.

Sorry, but have to actually seen his cabinet? Ben Carson heading Housing and Urban Development. Betsy Davis heading Department of Education. Rick Perry, a guy with a bachelors degree in animal science, heading the Department of Energy... these people are some of the least qualified people on the planet.

You should

The fact that he is openly racist is one of the biggest marks against him

That's very true, if they're the sort of person you trust to put their personal feelings and opinions aside when they make decisions. If you don't feel they're that sort of person, you better hope their values align to your own.

I'm not so sure. I almost get the impression that he doesn't really care about a lot of those things except as a means to get that part of the republican base to the polls.

You're delusional if you think Trump will perform a first strike. That's complete nonsense.

He's a businessman, not a warmonger. His rhetoric is entirely along those lines as well.

Pence is at least a sane conservative theocrat

Trump is a lying corrupt racist who is extremely unpredictable and may or may not blow up markets, start wars, abandon our allies, or deport millions of people

Whenever I read something like this, I always wonder whether people posting it legitimately think this kind of rhetoric will advance their argument, or is it all just about social signalling.

If I was to criticize someone with the intent of changing others opinions about the person in question, the last thing I would do is interject my criticism with a bunch of derogatory and emotional labels. It would simply make me sound biased, irrational or extremely partisan/dogmatic.

And yet, this is exactly what people do, even in the media, who has all kinds of incentives to project a rational and detached image. Extreme social signaling is the only explanation I can come up with.

He may be (most likely is) corrupt but, as has been extensively discussed elsewhere, it is not clear that has done anything strictly illegal, which makes it tricky to say definitively.

He definitely spouts outrageous lies all the time, though.

Legalized corruption remains corruption. It was when Clinton did it, and it is when Trump does it.

I'm not the one who commented that, but I think it's simply true and easily demonstrable given any widely-accepted definitions of the terms. Will saying it "advance an argument"? I don't know. But it is true.

If you are correct, you must know something that most people who are willing to bet money on their opinion do not.

Add to the fact he won't be releasing his taxes so the American people won't have a clear picture of who he owes money to or who owes money to him this makes for a very uncomfortable situation.

Are you aware that all profits from his foreign holdings are going to the federal treasury?

If not, rethink.

Being president of the USA is a big deal, he needs to be willing to set aside his pride and company. Sell it for pieces, invest those in a blind trust or index stocks. At least the foreign properties he can buy them back afterwards. Even Carter appointed an independent trustee to run his peanut farm.

> so just leave it only to career politicians.

What's with the hate for career politicians, would you hire something out to be programmed by someone who had just taken an introductory python course?

Besides that Trump is worse on corruption, worse on lying, worse on demagoguery then most career politicians. Which is a fairly large accomplishment.

> The hates toward DJT are crazy.

He earns it.

Do you really want a leader who is using their power to profit only themselves?

Damn straight. We want business out of our government. The government belongs to everyone, not to billionaires.

Not for no reason. You are being downvoted because you apparently don't understand what a conflict of interest is, and yet have the audacity to suggest that the criticisms towards Trump are "crazy".

This isn't "crazy hate", this is wanting to know who is pulling my President's strings.

Is lying about WMDs and then destroying the lives of millions of human beings (also known as iraqis) a crime?