"A group of Miami residents sued President Donald Trump, Florida officials and trustees of Miami Dade College on Tuesday over Trump’s planned presidential library..."

"... claiming that the college’s decision to hand over a coveted parcel of land for the project constitutes an illegal benefit for the president. The litigants — who include a current Miami Dade College student — allege that the land transfer violates the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause, which bars states from attempting to influence a president by giving him gifts. They argue that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his handpicked board of trustees at the state-operated college were wrong to give a nearly three-acre parcel in downtown Miami to Trump’s library foundation last year in exchange for $10. The county’s property appraiser had said the land was worth more than $67 million...."

From "Trump’s plan to use his library as a hotel sparks lawsuit/Litigants allege Florida officials violated the Constitution’s bar on attempts to influence the president through gifts, by handing over a valuable parcel of land" (WaPo).

Trump wins the emoluments case.

Good.

Here's the NYT report:

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., found that the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia had no legal standing to sue Mr. Trump. The judges roundly rejected the premise of the case, which claimed that the Trump International Hotel, located blocks from the White House, is unfairly siphoning off business from hotels owned by the local jurisdictions. The lawsuit, which alleges violations of the Constitution’s anti-corruption or “emoluments” clauses, was about to enter the evidence-gathering phase....

“Even if government officials were patronizing the hotel to curry the President’s favor, there is no reason to conclude that they would cease doing so were the president enjoined from receiving income from the hotel,” the 36-page opinion said. “The hotel would still be publicly associated with the president, would still bear his name and would still financially benefit members of his family.”...

“Neither [emoluments] clause expressly confers any rights on any person, nor does either clause specify any remedy for a violation,” they wrote....

Trump's tweeted response to the decision:

Word just out that I won a big part of the Deep State and Democrat induced Witch Hunt. Unanimous decision in my favor from The United States Court of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit on the ridiculous Emoluments Case. I don’t make money, but lose a fortune for the honor of..... serving and doing a great job as your President (including accepting Zero salary!).

ADDED: To explain my reaction, "Good," here's what I wrote when I first heard about this litigation, in January 2017:

Quite apart from the substantive merits of the claim, it's hard to see how there are plaintiffs with standing to sue. How does the money paid in rent and hotel bills to the Trump organization cause concrete and particularized injury to anyone? You could say we are all injured by the possibility that commercial activities could influence the President's decisions, but that's the sort of generalized grievance that isn't enough.

But the filing of the lawsuit brings attention to the legal argument, which bolsters the political argument that the risk of influence is bad and should be eliminated. And in the end, almost certainly, the matter will be resolved in the political sphere and not the courts.

"It is not like this case is about national security or corruption. Right?"

Judge Daniels' decision in CREW v Trump was filed on Dec. 21, 2017: over 30 days ago. Plaintiffs have not yet filed any any appeal. There is no rush: it is not like this case is about national security or corruption. Right? @instapundit @LegInsurrection @annalthouse @AnnCoulter

— Seth Barrett Tillman (@SethBTillman) January 23, 2018

"Nothing in the text or the history of the Emoluments Clauses suggests that the Framers intended these provisions to protect anyone from competition."

"The prohibitions contained in these Clauses arose from the Framers' concern with protecting the new government from corruption and undue influence. Indeed, at the time of the Founding, the new republic was conscious of the European custom of bestowing gifts and money on foreign officials.... The Framers were not only concerned with foreign corruption, but they were also wary of undue influence from within.... [T]here can be no doubt that the intended purpose of the Foreign Emoluments Clause was to prevent official corruption and foreign influence, while the Domestic Emoluments Clause was meant to ensure presidential independence. Therefore, the Hospitality Plaintiffs' theory that the Clauses protect them from increased competition in the market for government business must be rejected, especially when (1) the Clauses offer no protection from increased competition in the market for non-government business and (2) with Congressional consent, the Constitution allows federal officials to accept foreign gifts and emoluments, regardless of its effect on competition.... There is simply no basis to conclude that the Hospitality Plaintiffs' alleged competitive injury falls within the zone of interests that the Emoluments Clauses sought to protect."

Wrote the federal district judge George Daniels (PDF), dismissing the lawsuit against President Trump. I haven't written much about this case, having said what I had to say when I first read about it, just before it was filed, last January:

Quite apart from the substantive merits of the claim, it's hard to see how there are plaintiffs with standing to sue. How does the money paid in rent and hotel bills to the Trump organization cause concrete and particularized injury to anyone? You could say we are all injured by the possibility that commercial activities could influence the President's decisions, but that's the sort of generalized grievance that isn't enough.

But the filing of the lawsuit brings attention to the legal argument, which bolsters the political argument that the risk of influence is bad and should be eliminated. And in the end, almost certainly, the matter will be resolved in the political sphere and not the courts.

"I stand entirely behind the above footnote: behind every sentence, every phrase, every word and every syllable."

"I made no mistake, intentional or inadvertent. I retract nothing, and I do not intend to retract anything.”

Swore Seth Barrett Tillman, a lecturer at Maynooth University in Ireland, who has described himself — in a court filing — as a “lonely scholar with unusual ideas, who is unaffiliated with the popular, the organized and the wealthy.”

He has written an amicus brief — in the case accusing President Trump of violating the Emoluments Clause — presenting historical evidence for the proposition that the clause doesn't apply to the President.

As Adam Liptak describes in "‘Lonely Scholar With Unusual Ideas’ Defends Trump, Igniting Legal Storm" (NYT):

The reaction was swift and brutal. Legal historians and a lawyer for members of Congress suing Mr. Trump said Mr. Tillman had misunderstood, misrepresented or suppressed crucial contrary evidence in a second document.

Jed Shugerman, a law professor at Fordham, wrote a blog post urging Mr. Tillman to issue a correction. “One might expect,” Professor Shugerman wrote, “that when a brief before a court contains significant factual errors or misleading interpretations of evidence, the authors of that brief will offer to correct their briefs or retract the sections if they are no longer supported by the evidence.”

In another blog post, Brianne J. Gorod, a lawyer with the Constitutional Accountability Center, which represents lawmakers suing Mr. Trump, said Mr. Tillman’s account was “not accurate, not even remotely so.”

Five legal historians, including Professor Shugerman, filed their own friend-of-the-court brief. They said Mr. Tillman’s had “incorrectly described” the evidence in a footnote in his brief.

But the brutal experts were wrong, and in the end they had to concede and apologize.

So let this be a lesson to you who count the experts, those of you who hooted and guffawed at this comic bit:



UPDATE: On October 3rd, all 5 of the historians retracted a footnote and apologized.

Each of us would hope for more generous treatment from another scholar who criticized our own work in this fashion, so it was unfair not show the same level of respect to Professor Tillman.

An elite group of lawyers and lawprofs is suing President Trump for violating the Emoluments Clause.

The lawsuit will be filed on Monday, the NYT reports.

“No one would have thought when the Constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument,” Sheri A. Dillon, a partner at Morgan Lewis, said at a news conference this month...

“If you think other countries are not going to try to leverage relationships with Trump’s companies to influence trade or military policy, that is naïve,” [said  Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor and former congressional candidate who has been studying and writing about the Emoluments Clause for nearly a decade].

Quite apart from the substantive merits of the claim, it's hard to see how there are plaintiffs with standing to sue. How does the money paid in rent and hotel bills to the Trump organization cause concrete and particularized injury to anyone? You could say we are all injured by the possibility that commercial activities could influence the President's decisions, but that's the sort of generalized grievance that isn't enough.

But the filing of the lawsuit brings attention to the legal argument, which bolsters the political argument that the risk of influence is bad and should be eliminated. And in the end, almost certainly, the matter will be resolved in the political sphere and not the courts.

Trump is about to do a press conference.

I'll be watching and updating this post. Watch with me!

UPDATE 1: Trump has "great respect for freedom of the press and all of that." He expresses admiration for the news outlets that refrained from reporting on the salacious dossier.

2: "We're going to have a very elegant day" on the inauguration, with lots of military bands.

3: "It's an asset if Putin likes Trump," because we need Russia's help fighting ISIS.

4. "Does anyone really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way."

5.  He could run his company and serve as President at the same time and do great, but he doesn't want to do that.

6. Trump's lawyer explains the structure set up to separate Trump from his business "empire" ("hundreds of entities"). She stresses that this isn't legally required, but voluntarily. Trump is giving up all management authorities "for the duration" of his administration. The sons — Don and Eric — are given all power. Ivanka will have no further involvement with the organization. Trump's assets will be held in a trust. Many details about what will be in that Trust. Many liquid assets have been sold. Many deals canceled, losing millions. No foreign deals will be made during the administration. There will be an ethics adviser scrutinizing any domestic deals (from which Trump will be walled off).

7. Why not sell everything? Selling the brand "Trump" would create more dangers of exploiting the presidency. Ending the brand would be throwing away immense wealth. Other options are also dismissed as unrealistic.

"Most scholars seem to agree that if the President-elect doesn’t take the prophylactic approach to his conflicts, impeachment may be the only other remedy."

This is the level of analysis we get at The New Yorker now? It's on-its-face ludicrous to suggest that "most scholars" could possibly have an opinion on such a specific issue. Who are the "scholars" in Ryan Lizza's world? They don't sound like scholars to me. It sounds political, not scholarly.

And I do note Lizza's use of the weasel word "seem." Even so, the front-page teaser is so dispiritingly political. I would like to read some serious analysis of this subject, and I am a New Yorker subscriber.

Why are these articles presented in a form that is so off-putting to anyone who's not tripping on Trump hate?

"What's a little matter like the Constitution among friends?"

The Emoluments Clause.

It's strange the way we feel we can ignore -- or massage away -- words of the Constitution that don't seem to serve the purpose for which they were written.

But since it is the way we are, I would like to encourage Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for President.

AND: Lawprof Larry Tribe is giving massages over here:

My recent book, "The Invisible Constitution" (Oxford University Press 2008), argues that much of what we both do and should regard as the United States Constitution is neither expressed by, nor plausibly inferable from, the document's text. The book develops six models -- geometric, geodesic, global, geological, gravitational, and gyroscopic....