A new lawsuit filed by a liberal advocacy organization Monday in federal court alleges that President Donald Trump is in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
The clause precludes federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign powers. The lawsuit argues Trump is violating the clause because many of his firms do business with foreign governments. Among other alleged violations, lawyers point to space the Chinese government rents at Trump Tower in New York as an example of an unconstitutional emolument. China also helped finance another property in which Trump holds a significant stake.
“The framers of the Constitution were students of history,” Deepak Gupta, one of the lawyers behind the suit, told the New York Times . “And they understood that one way a republic could fail is if foreign powers could corrupt our elected leaders.”
Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, called the suit a political stunt.
“This is purely harassment for political gain, and, frankly, I find it very, very sad,” he said.
During a brief exchange with the press on Monday morning in the Oval Office, the president said the challenge was “totally without merit.”
The lawsuit is organized by an advocacy group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). A number of accomplished lawyers and legal scholars are leading the effort, including Laurence Tribe, the legendary Harvard Law School professor; Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine; and Richard Painter, an ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House.
Other legal scholars are dubious of their theory of the Emoluments Clause. Professor Andy Grewal of the University of Iowa College of Law argued in a recent paper that transactions conducted between foreign governments and the Trump Organization do not violate the Constitution, because Trump does not himself participate in those transactions. He argues the term “emolument” refers to specific benefits individuals accrue by personally providing services, and does not reach ordinary exchanges done at market value by business entities that they might own. (RELATED: Jared Kushner Can Lawfully Work In The White House, Justice Dept. Says)
Before reaching arguments on the merits, the group will have to prove it has the right to bring the lawsuit in the first place. To bring a suit against another person or entity, plaintiffs must demonstrate that they have “standing” to sue. Therefore, CREW must demonstrate that they are injured in some fashion by the Trump Organization’s dealings with foreign governments. What’s more, that injury must be a specific and particularized, not generalized or theoretical harm.
Ian Milhiser of ThinkProgress, a liberal legal commentator who is skeptical of the suit, argues a business competitor may have an easier time establishing standing. That view is also shared by Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. Milhiser also notes that, as the Supreme Court explained in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife — an important standing case — that a plaintiff must show a “causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of,” which could prove a tall order for CREW.
For their part, CREW points to a 1982 Supreme Court decision that allowed a civil rights group to sue a landlord after it deployed black clients to broach the possibility of signing a lease with building managers. In the past, those arguments have received a friendly hearing from the 2nd U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the federal court in New York City, where this lawsuit will be filed.
It is not yet clear who will represent Trump in the litigation.
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President Donald Trump has fulfilled a campaign pledge by signing an executive order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The trade deal, a linchpin of ex-President Barack Obama’s Asia policy, was signed by 12 nations.
„Great thing for the American worker what we just did,“ said Mr Trump as he dumped the pact with a stroke of a pen.
He also cut funding for international groups that provide abortions and freezed hiring of some federal workers.
During his presidential campaign, Mr Trump had criticised TPP as a „potential disaster for our country“, arguing it harmed US manufacturing.
The massive trade deal, which covered 40% of the world’s economy, was negotiated in 2015 by nations including the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico.
TPP’s stated aim was to strengthen economic ties and boost growth, including by reducing tariffs.
It also included measures to enforce labour and environmental standards, copyrights, patents and other legal protections.
Also on Monday morning, Mr Trump pledged to „massively“ cut regulations and taxes on companies, but impose „a very major border tax“ if they move factories outside the US.
This followed a meeting with executives from companies including defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin, apparel maker Under Armour, appliance manufacturer Whirlpool, electric-carmaker Tesla and pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson.
After meeting business leaders, Mr Trump also warned them he would impose a „very major border tax“ on companies that move manufacturing out of the US.
„We’re going to be cutting regulation massively“, but the rules will be „just as protective of the people“, he told reporters after the morning meeting in the White House’s Roosevelt Room.
He pledged to lower corporate taxes to 15% or 20% from the current 35% and lift regulations by up to 75%.
Since winning the White House, Mr Trump has upbraided US companies that have moved factories overseas.
Vowing to slap taxes on foreign-manufactured products, he told executives on Monday: „All you have to do is stay. “
According to his schedule, the president will meet labour leaders in the afternoon.
The president is also expected to an sign executive order to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), a trade pact between the US, Canada and Mexico.
Mr Trump has blamed Nafta for depriving American workers of their jobs.
The US Senate will meanwhile vote on the nomination of Mike Pompeo to be CIA director.
Rex Tillerson ’s nomination as Secretary of State was effectively assured on Monday as Senator Marco Rubio dropped his objections.
On Sunday, Mr Trump spoke by telephone with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the White House situation room.
Mr Trump said his conversation with Mr Netanyahu – who had a tense relationship with Mr Obama – was „very nice“.
A White House summary of the call did not mention Mr Trump’s plan to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would overturn two decades of US policy.
The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 requires the US president to transfer the embassy to Jerusalem unless he certifies every six months that it is not in the national interest.
Every president since Bill Clinton has upheld the measure, and President Obama most recently did so on 1 December.
Mr Trump has until May to make a formal decision.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the administration was „at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject“.
On Saturday, Mr Trump launched a stinging attack on media reporting of attendance figures and the weather at his inauguration.
During a heated exchange on NBC on Sunday, his senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said the White House had „alternative facts“, a phrase that quickly went viral.

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“My advice to Sean today is if you used a statistic that is wrong, correct it today. There no harm done if you’re press secretary and saying I got statistics wrong and walk it back,” Fleischer said in an interview on “CBS This Morning.”
Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary from 2001 to 2003, was referring to the situation late Saturday in which Spicer called the press into the White House briefing room to scold the media about its inauguration coverage, telling them that they were wrong in their comparisons to the crowd size at President Obama’s inaugurations. After making the statement, Spicer left the room, refusing to take any questions.
“Cool the confrontation down a notch or three,” Fleischer said.
Fleischer suspected that President Trump ordered Spicer to chastise the press and said that Spicer is now going to get challenged on it at the press briefing on Monday.
“It concerns me, it’s one thing to take on the press — that’s a time-honored tradition in Washington, D. C — [but] take them on though when you have high ground. The part about how people showed up in the audience at the inauguration, who cares, it’s not worth fighting over,” Fleischer said.
His final piece of advice to members of the press was that it doesn’t matter if the president praises them or criticizes them.
“Your job is to be neutral, fair and accurate,” he said.

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