A federal appeals court appeared divided Thursday over whether to revive a lawsuit that claims Pres. Trump's ownership of a luxury hotel in Washington, DC, violates the Constitution's ban on receiving financial benefits from the states or foreign leaders.
That provision forbids the president to receive"any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state" or any state in the United States. The suit contends Trump improperly benefits financially whenever foreign or state governments patronize the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
"This case is a lemon," said Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, because the courts have never given a definitive explanation of what an emolument actually is. Noting that the Constitution says no office holder can accept an emolument without the consent of Congress, he added,"What concerns me is that Congress is wholly absent from this."
But Judge James Wynn said the court had a duty to keep the lawsuit alive in order to define emoluments and declare what they mean to office holders. Loren AliKhan, District of Columbia's solicitor general, said the"cleanest remedy" for violating the Constitution would be an order requiring the president to divest himself of the hotel. Foreign dignitaries would then know they could not provide any financial benefit to the president by taking their business to his hotel instead of a facility operated by D.C. or Maryland.
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