By NWV Senior Political News Writer, Jim Kouri
Not satisfied with a long, drawn out criminal investigation of President Donald Trump by some of the Deep State’s most notorious enemies of the U.S., the Democratic Party became hysterically creative in examining his past for evidence of lawbreaking. Even the news media appears to have shed any semblance of unbiased political coverage.
“Unfortunately for them their creativity has its limits. The Mueller report and the millions of dollars spent investigating Trump met with utter failure, but the Democratic lawmakers such as Reps. Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings, and Jerry Nadler are not going to give up their search for the Holy Grail — Trump’s impeachment and removal from the White House,” said Bob Thomas, a former prosecutor.
But failure in their covert and overt destruction of the Trump presidency added to the already deranged Democratic Party and its news media puppets:
In Richmond, Virginia this morning, a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Democrat attorneys general for Maryland and the District of Columbia accusing Trump of “illegally profiting from his continuing financial interest in the Trump International Hotel, located blocks from the White House”
The civil suit accused Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Emoluments Clause that stipulates presidents and other government officials cannot accept gifts or money from foreign and domestic government officials without the prior permission of Congress. The plaintiffs’ allegations, wrote Judge Paul Niemeyer, were too “attenuated” and “abstract” to merit legal standing.
The Emoluments Clause (actually three separate clauses) of the U.S. Constitution is one of our primary safeguards against political corruption. The most relevant portion here, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8, reads:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office or Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine believed — or so they claimed — that Trump violated the law. In the midst of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s dog & pony show, the two Attorneys General filed a lawsuit against both the Trump Business Organization and against President Trump the government official.
Frosh and Racine claimed that by continuing to maintain a financial interest in the Trump International Hotel while as president, Trump and various family members effectively were diverting revenues from nearby hotels and convention centers into their own pockets.
This appeared to many to be a far-fetched legal argument. Aside from the fact that Congress has final say on such matters, Donald Trump had leased the property, the federally-owned Old Post Office Pavilion, for redevelopment through his consortium back in 2013, well before he declared his candidacy for president. Since taking office in January 2017, he remembered — and he kept — his promise to forward all foreign-based profits from the project to the U.S. Treasury Department.
But on March 28, 2018, U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte, a Clinton appointee, granted certiorari, asserting that Trump’s investment in the hotel was causing economic harm. “It is ironic that the judge who saw merit in the ridiculous case was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, who with his wife Hillary and other Clintonistas ran a so-called ‘charity’ while Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State,” said former forensic accountant and police detective Sally Ann Mertzen. President Trump appealed Messitte’s ruling to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, a three-judge panel ruled 3-0 that the lawsuit has no standing, and in the process nullified any and all related subpoenas.
The decision was rendered, moreover, “with prejudice,” meaning that the plaintiffs cannot refile the case at a later date. Attorneys General Frosh and Racine notwithstanding have vowed to explore further legal options. The circuit court panel rejected this view. President Trump’s retention of ownership of a property, members concluded, did not constitute willful self-dealing of any sort.
Indeed, Judge Paul Niemeyer, a George H.W. Bush appointee, in a stinging 36-page opinion, argued that the Trump brand name to some public officials might well be a liability to be avoided. He wrote:
“Indeed, there is a distinct possibility – which was completely ignored by the District and Maryland, as well as by the district court – that certain government officials might avoid patronizing the Hotel because of the President’s association with it. And, 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. After all, the Hotel would still be publicly associated with the President, would still bear his name, and would still financially benefit members of his family.”
“The District and Maryland’s interest in enforcing the Emoluments Clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the president is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between parties.”
President Trump, sent out two Twitter postings. He said, “The case was a Deep State and Democrat-induced Witch Hunt.” He added, “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!).”
“It is unlikely that congressional Democrats are feeling such elation. The Democratic-majority House of Representatives this year has issued a blitz of subpoenas of Trump’s business records, including those related to the hotel in this case. The president has vowed to block the release of such information and to fight all the subpoenas.”
Today, three judges made that task a lot easier for the Commander in Chief.
Postscript: Nine days later, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan temporarily blocked 37 subpoenas filed by congressional Democrats to acquire President Trump’s financial records as part of a separate emoluments case. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, all Obama appointees, had remanded the case to the district court after rejecting the administration’s request to dismiss the suit outright. Judge Sullivan previously ruled last month that the subpoena requests could proceed. The lawmakers are being represented by the Washington, D.C.-based Constitutional Accountability Center. The focus here is Trump’s stake in a number of properties, including Trump Tower (New York City) and the Mar-a-Lago Club (Palm Beach, Florida). This lawsuit, like the one filed by the Maryland and District of Columbia attorneys general, underscores a palpable fanaticism of President Trump’s opponents in gaining access to his personal records.
Rather than investigating anti-American racists such of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the Democrats and their news media puppets spend all of their time plotting against President Trump.
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Contact Jim Kouri – E-Mail: COPmagazine@aol.com
