By MARSHA MERCER
The drive to impeach President Donald Trump is taking
a turn. It’s emoluments time.
The House Judiciary Committee plans to meet Monday to
investigate “Presidential Corruption: Emoluments and Profiting off the
Presidency.”
This new tack comes with risk. Despite spending five
months parsing special counsel Robert Mueller’s report about Russian influence
in the 2016 campaign, House Democrats have not made their case for Trump’s impeachment
to the public.
Only 37 percent of voters want Congress to begin
impeachment proceedings, a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday
found. Half of voters were opposed and 12 percent undecided.
Support is highest among the Democratic base but weak among
independent voters, who the Democratic presidential nominee will need in 2020.
House Democrats who back impeachment believe exposing Trump’s
self-dealing – using his office for personal gain -- will gin up enough public support
so lawmakers in districts Trump won will vote for impeachment.
Air Force flight crews have stayed at Turnberry,
Trump’s resort in Scotland, on stopovers from the United States to the Middle
East. Vice President Mike Pence stayed at Doonbeg, Trump’s resort in Ireland,
even though it was across the country from his meetings in Dublin.
Trump touted his Doral golf resort in Miami for next
year’s meeting of the Group of Seven world leaders.
“The public is starting to get the point that he’s
been running the White House as a money-making operation for himself and his
family,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the Judiciary Committee, told
NBC’s Chuck Todd.
Trump’s presidency has introduced Americans to the Constitution’s
three anti-corruption measures, the Emoluments Clauses.
The Framers used emolument to mean a benefit, gain,
profit or advantage. At that time, foreign governments often gave lavish tokens
of appreciation and friendship to diplomats, and the Framers wanted to limit
foreign influence.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause in Article 1, Section 9 prohibits
any person holding an “Office of Profit or Trust” from accepting “without the
Consent of the Congress. . . any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any
kind, whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
The two other Emolument Clauses concern domestic
issues.
There’s significant debate among legal scholars about
what constitutes an emolument and whether elected officials, including the
president, are covered by the clause, the Congressional Research Service said
in a report last month.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has
presumed the president is covered, and courts have come to the same conclusion,
the report said. But there have been no definitive court decisions.
When President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2009, he donated the $1.4 million prize money to charity.
Trump refused to put his business holdings in a blind
trust, as presidents for the last 40 years have done. He set up a trust run by
his sons and a Trump organization executive and said he wouldn’t talk business
with his family.
Trump also said he would not profit from foreign
governments that use his hotels. He has donated about $351,000 to the U.S.
Treasury to cover the profits, but as he has neither disclosed his record-keeping
nor how he calculated the amount, Democrats say the figure is much too low.
Three major lawsuits claiming Trump violated the
Emoluments Clauses are bouncing around federal courts, but the pace of justice
is slow. Trump claims he is losing money as president, largely because of his legal
bills to defend himself in the lawsuits.
“It’s probably costing me from $3 to $5 billion for
the privilege of being – and I couldn’t care less – I don’t care. You know if
you’re wealthy, it doesn’t matter,” he said last month.
Again, Trump refuses to provide any documentation to
back up his claims.
He also complained nobody investigated Obama’s lucrative
book deal. The former president and
first lady Michelle Obama signed a joint book deal for $65 million in 2017 –
after he left office.
“I got sued on a thing called ‘emoluments,’” Trump
said.
Trump created his problems for himself by refusing to
follow established presidential norms like blind trusts and disclosure of tax
returns. Democrats smell smoke, but they must find the fire to make the case.
©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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