Judges Skeptical of Trump Emoluments Lawsuit

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. You can't count on the questioning at oral arguments to determine the decision in a case, but they are a good indicator, and that does not bode well for the Democratic attorneys general who claimed that President Trump is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution when he profits from foreign and domestic government visitors at his luxury hotel in Washington, d C. Joining me is Bloomberg News reporter Legal reporter Andrew Harris,

who was at the sometimes contentious Appellate court hearing in Richmond, Virginia. So andy for those whose eyes glaze over when they hear the word emoluments describe what the lawsuit is about out, I'm so glad you're as don't over to say that no now e monuments clauses. There are two of them in the Constitution basically prohibit a president, any president, from being enriched by foreign or other domestic governments while he

or she is in office. And last year, actually two years ago now, the Democratic attorneys general from the District of Columbia and neighboring Maryland sued President Trump alleging principally that he is making money from his DC Luxuri hotel just blocks from the White House from foreign and domestic governments in violation of the Constitution. They want him to either divest himself of his hotel and his other properties, or, failing that, take other action implied perhaps resigned, uh to

stop receiving emoluments. So in your story you write that the panel of judges was openly skeptical of the two Democratic ages. How so, this is a procedurally very complicated case, June Uh. It comes up on the trial judge, who was a Clinton appointee, refusing to grant permission to take an appeal of his denials of the Trump motions to dismiss and in another way, of um not ruling on individual citizen Trump's motion to dismiss the lawsuit because he's

been sued in both capacities. The judges had a lot of questions for the lawyers for the ages about under what auspices they were continuing to pursue individual Trump. They wanted to drop the suit against him, and Trump's lawyers said no because they wanted to get an appellate ruling that uh, he couldn't be sued, but also as to whether or not they could pursue him as president while he's in office, or if anybody can sue him for

a violation of the constitution. So one Justice Department lawyer said, ex saily, there's no authority to sue directly the president of the United States and his official capacity. If you can sue him directly, and they don't want him to sue to sue him indirectly as a businessman, is he Are they saying he's above the law? Uh? You know. The irony of yesterday's hearing is one other spectator pointed

out to be as nobody said. The obvious solution is that the emoluments clause is believed to be enforceable predominantly by Congress. They're the ones that can approve or disapprove of his acceptance of emoluments from foreign governments. They're also the ones that can enforce it through the eye word impeachment or perhaps some other centre that word was uttered at one point by Judge Dennis chet at the hearing yesterday, catching more than a few of us by surprised actually

here at open court. So, Andy, isn't there a lawsuit by Congress or some congress some representatives about the emoluments clause as well? Yes, and we're still waiting for an all ruling on that. That was a lawsuit filed by nearly two congressional Democrats, led by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, claiming that Trump's failure to go to Congress and ask for permission to accept the monuments, we're depriving them of

the ability to say yea or nay. Now, of course, Bloomenthal and his cohorts filed that lawsuit while the Democrats were still a minority in the House and didn't have the ability to force a vote themselves. They now have that, but the President has not come to them for permission, and they were asking the court to issue an order compelling him to do so. Interesting, very political parts of this of this court case. Now, um, the panel was

three Republican appointed judges. Was there any move at all or any mention of the fact to have the judge appointed by Trump recused or that he should have recused himself. Oh, beware what you wish for. I there was no movement to answer your question plainly. Uh. The new judge was a Marvin Quadelbelm, who is a Trump appointee who joined the bench in September. The other two were Bush appointees. Uh. Every judge is appointed by a president from one or

the other political party. When you start picking off judges, I think the conventional wisdom is you could be subject to that when you get the judge that you like from the other side. So I think other than an obvious uh and blatant conflict, I think parties are generally loath to move to pick off the other side's judges for fear of that happening to them. Now, the Supreme Court has never taken up a case specifically on emoluments. Is there any legal precedent here? Not? Really, No, this

is new, new new. The biggest legal president is obviously, can you sue is sitting president to enforce the Constitution against him? And that's something that we have not seen before. So there's nothing directly on point that would control these cases going forward. And it's almost certain to wind up in the lap of the Supreme Court. Now, the lawyers defending President Trump were Justice Department lawyers. Did he have any personal or private attorneys there? Yes, he did, Actually

he had one of each. He had Hasha Mupon, who's a deputy Assistant Attorney General who handles a lot of their high profile appeals, arguing on behalf of President Donald Trump, and a private attorney, William Conservoy, arguing on behalf of citizen businessman Donald Trump. So we heard argument from both of them yesterday. This is really an interesting case in the guise of a monuments. Thanks so much, and that's Bloomberg News legal reporter Andrew Harris. Thanks for listening to

the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg The Duck the End and Duck the