Trump is an emoluments magnet
by digby
That's what Law Professor Laurence Tribe said this morning on Joy Reid's show:
“It’s called the emoluments clause and it basically says no officer of the United States can be on the receiving end of any kind of benefit, economic benefit, payment, gift, profit, whatever, from a foreign government or its corporations or agents,” Tribe explained before pointing to Trump’s kids having one foot in his administration and the other in Trump’s businesses. “In this case Donald Jr. or Ivanka or Eric — then there would be a close relationship that could never be disentangled by the American public.”
Turning to the Trump family’s continuing ownership of hotels and businesses throughout the world, Tribe said Trump needs to sell off everything.
“He’s a constant emolument magnet,” Tribe quipped. “He thinks of himself as a babe magnet, but he’s an emoluments magnet. And all around the world everybody wants to go to his hotels and not the competitors, and wants to give him a variance or a special land use permit and there’s simply no way short of absolutely liquidating all of his cash and assets into a blind trust and not handed over to his kids.”
“No way short of that prevents him from being a walking, talking violation of the Constitution from the moment he takes the oath,” he concluded.
And frankly, considering the legal exposure inherent in the liquidation of a business that depends upon a "brand" for its value,. I'm going to guess that even if he did this there would be tremendous incentive for him to make special "deals" with business partners to avoid such complications. I don't think there's any way for him not to be riddled with conflicts no matter what he does. He should not have run for president without unwinding that business before he ran. But hey, nobody said much about it and nobody told him he should so, what the hell, right?
Now it's too late. The only thing that can stop him from doing exactly what he's doing is impeachment. Does anyone think Jason Chaffetz is going to launch those hearings any time soon? I didn't think so. This isn't Richard Nixon's Republican party. Nobody's going to walk up the Hill and tell The Donald it's time to go.
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