The Justice Department is challenging a federal judge’s decision to allow a case to go forward that accuses President Donald Trump of profiting off the presidency.
Justice Department lawyers want an appeals court to take the case instead.
They filed papers Monday seeking to move the case from federal court in D.C. to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. They also want to stop subpoena requests seeking Trump’s business tax returns, and documents from Trump’s D.C. and New York hotels, Mar-a-Lago Club and Trump Tower.
Justice Department lawyers said answering the 37 subpoena requests by July 29 would cause Trump irreparable injury.
The lawsuit was brought by nearly 200 members of Congress. It alleges Trump is violating the Constitution by accepting foreign government spending at his Washington hotel.
(AP)
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One Response
The congressmen’s suit is frivolous and in bad faith for a number of reasons, but the first and most important is that the foreign emoluments clause does not apply to the president. The presidency is not “an office under the united states”, and presidents are free to accept even open gifts from foreign governments, as George Washington openly did, with no notion that he was doing anything wrong, and no protest from Congress.