A night view of the main entrance to the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. : Glynn Wilson

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a significant blow to Donald J. Trump’s legal attempt to block a lawsuit and investigation into how his private business practices violate the anti-corruption emoluments clauses in the U.S. Constitution, a federal court denied a series of motions by attorneys for the president this week and allowed discovery of records to move forward.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington denied motions to drop or delay the lawsuit brought by Democrats in Congress and ruled that lawyers could move forward with their demands to obtain financial records and conduct interviews with members of the Trump Organization.

“… discovery will conclude and cross motions for summary judgment will be fully briefed within six months,” the judge wrote in a 12-page ruling rejecting Trump’s appeal trying to argue that members of Congress have no standing to sue him.

The ruling is another setback in Trump’s attempt to block the courts from investigating his private business practices and how they violate a constitutional provision that makes accepting payments or gifts from state or foreign governments a crime and grounds for impeachment by Congress. A similar case brought by attorneys general in D.C. and Maryland is also proceeding in the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Federal Judge Denies Trump’s Request for a Stay in Emoluments Clause Case

Both cases, which could eventually make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, are unique and mark the first time courts have been put in the position of interpreting the emoluments clauses due to actions by a sitting president. They could reveal what critics have been saying all along, that the president’s commingling of his official duties with profits from his private businesses is wrong, especially business at the Trump International Hotel near the White House where many foreign officials stay in an attempt to gain influence with the administration.

Even the president’s dependence on U.S. Justice Department lawyers to make his case rather than his personal, private attorneys in this situation raises eyebrows with critics.

At Trump’s behest, department lawyers asked Sullivan to take the unusual step of signing off on an immediate appeal of his earlier rulings because of the “exceptional circumstances” of the case, but the judge refused.

“Plaintiffs are now poised to seek civil discovery against the President, including into his personal finances and official actions, which will distract the President from his official duties,” the attorneys argued.

Instead of going along and halting the case, Judge Sullivan ordered the two parties to begin requesting records and other information as part of a three-month discovery period from June 29 to September 27.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said the federal government would appeal.

“This case should have been dismissed. It presents important questions that warrant immediate appellate review and is another impractical attempt to disrupt and distract the President from his official duties,” Laco said in a statement.

The judge disagreed, and the case moves the attempt to seek private financial information about Trump and the Trump Organization forward. Many critics say it is unprecedented for a sitting president to maintain ownership of private businesses while in office, leading to all kinds of situations ripe for corruption.

The 4th Circuit Court, which reviews cases from Maryland, heard oral arguments in March and could issue a ruling at any time in an appeal of the case in Greenbelt.

About 200 Democrats, led by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York, seek a court order to stop the president from accepting payments that appear to be violations of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clauses.

Lawyers from the nonprofit Constitutional Accountability Center say the clause in the Constitution was designed to guard against undue influence by foreign governments by barring any gift or payment without prior approval from Congress.

“Judge Sullivan articulated what the law makes clear: there is absolutely no reason to delay one more day in ensuring that President Trump is held accountable for his violation of the Constitution’s preeminent anti-corruption provision,” Senator Blumenthal said in a statement.

Back in September, Judge Sullivan ruled that lawmakers had legal standing to sue and allowed the case to continue in part because the foreign emoluments clause “requires the President to ask Congress before accepting a prohibited emolument.”

Sullivan issued an additional opinion in April adopting a broad definition of “emolument” backed by the congressional Democrats. Sullivan described the record as “overwhelming evidence” from “over two hundred years of understanding the scope of the clause to be broad.”

In an example of how the Trump Hotel is being misused to influence the administration, it has been reported that a Saudi-funded lobbyist paid for 500 rooms at Trump’s hotel after the 2016 election and recently sought significant arms sales from the U.S., which were recently blocked by a vote in the Senate.

Lawyers characterized the president’s request for an immediate appeal as a delaying tactic designed to prevent any resolution of the case before the end of his term.

“If the President succeeds in running out the clock, an entire presidential term will have gone by with the nation’s highest officeholder making countless foreign policy decisions under a cloud of potentially divided loyalty and compromised judgment caused by his enrichment from foreign states,” according to the court filing from the Constitutional Accountability Center.

In his ruling this week, Judge Sullivan said the president failed to meet the legal standard for showing that an immediate appeal was warranted and might “advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.”

“Even though discovery has not begun, it will be scheduled to conclude and cross motions for summary judgment to be fully briefed within six months,” Sullivan wrote.

The Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a couple of blocks from the White House, has attracted a number of government clients, including the Kuwaiti Embassy, which has held its National Day celebration there three years in a row, for example. Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms in December 2016 and the Trump administration recently tried to sell some of the most sophisticated weapons produced in the United States to the Saudi government, although the sale was blocked by a vote in the Senate.

Also, former Governor Paul LePage of Main stayed at the hotel and dined at its restaurant in 2017 in an attempt to curry favor with Trump.

Despite the lawsuits, the Trump Organization did more business with foreign governments in 2018 than it did the year before, according to reporting by the Washington Post. The company says it received about $191,000 in profits from large events and hotel bookings paid for by foreign governments last year, money it claims to have donated to the U.S. Treasury. The previous year the company reported about $150,000 in business from foreign governments.

On the face of it this seems corrupt. But many things about the Trump administration are different from anything seen by any administration in American history. Trump’s hard core supporters don’t seem concerned. His public approval rating still hovers around 40 percent.