The leading case over President Trump's financial interests went before a federal judge in New York on Wednesday. The suit accuses the president of violating the Constitution's emoluments clause, which bars federal officials from accepting things of value from foreign governments. Among the allegations, the suit claims foreign officials are occurring favor with the president by staying at the Trump International Hotel in Washington and by providing his business with valuable
trademark protection in China. Judge George Daniels said, hill the side in the next thirty to sixty days whether the suit can go forward. Our guest today is one of the people behind the suit. He is Richard Painter, professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and vice chairman of the watchdog group called Crew. It's the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and it's one of the
plaintiffs in the case. Richard, Welcome back to the show. Um. One of the issues Judge Daniels asked about yesterday was basically this, I'll oversimplify significantly. Why is this thing in court? The Constitution says that Congress can authorize amoluments, so why isn't this something that better off being dealt with in
the political process rather than the courts. Well, the Constitution says that the anybody holding a position of trust with the United States government may not receive a present or an a monument, in a monument being a profit or benefit from a foreign government without the consent of Congress.
So President Trump has the option of going to Congress and asking for consent to receive profits and benefits from dealings with foreign governments, whether it's foreign diplomat staying in the hotels and running out the ball rooms, or whether it's the financial support that the Trump business empire very likely guests from banks controlled by foreign governments. We know about the Bank of China extending some substantial loans, and there may very well be others and sovereign wealth funds.
So he could go to Congress for permission. But when he doesn't do that, he's in violation of the Constitution. Uh. And we are asking the judge to require the President in a junction to have to comply with the amoluments clause, not accept profits or benefits from doings with foreign governments, or do what the Constitution says he must do, which is to go to Congress and get permission. Uh. And that's what we're opening the judge is going to do, Richard.
The Trump administration is arguing that Crew and other plaintiffs lacked the legal standing to sue that they you can't claim the kind of injury from his alleged violation of the emoluments clause that's needed. How do you answer that, Well, we believe we do have a standing under the standing case law in the Second Circuit, UH, where we have brought the case in the Southern District of New York.
We are a government reform group that is focused on campaign finance or evolving door and other corruption problems in government for a well over a decade, and we have had the very substantive resources dealing with this new avenue and very dangerous avenue corruption that the founders anticipated when they drafted the miama's clause. Uh. And that is foreign governments seeking to influence, you know, I States government officials
through unconstitutional payments on profits and benefits. And so we believe we do have standing and that's one of the issues that Judge Daniels is gonna have to the thought Richard, if Judge Daniels. Lets this suit go forward and we get to the so called discovery stage. Talk to me about how that would work. Um, Your allegations in the complaints go into things like, you know, why the president
made certain decisions. Um, are we gonna have to, you know, have these knockdown, drag out fights over whether the president has to turn over material that goes to whether he did something because a foreign government gave him some sort of gift or favor. I. I I think it's up to the judge to decide what the discovery is permitted and what is relevant to the case. But remember that Minamas clauses a flat prohibition on profits uh and benefits from
dealings with foreign governments. The entire point is to not have to get into a question of whether the president is being bribed or any other government officials being bribed, whether they're doing something in government because of foreign government money. It's just a flat prohibition on receiving profits and benefits from dealings with foreign governments and presents from foreign governments
without the consent of Congress. Uh So, someone who does receive such benefits and profits without the extent of Congress is in violation of the Monuments clause regardless of what he or she does as the United States government officials. So we have illustrated the specific examples as to why we think that Minama's clause is so important to preventing corruption. But I don't think that we need to show or anybody needs to show that a particular official action was
actually influenced by the foreign government. The point of the founder the draft the constitutions to make sure we're not in the situation, but that could even be a possibility. Okay, we're gonna have to leave it there, but I know we're gonna be talking more because this is a big case, big issue, uh, and certainly there will be more developments going on. The federal judge yesterday heard arguments uh whether the lawsuit against President Trump on the monument's clause can
go forward. Thanks to our guest Richard Painter, the vice chair of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, that's one of the groups behind the suit. Coming up on Bloomberg Law, we're going to talk about what if anything, we learned about the Russia investigation from the testimony yesterday on Capitol Hill by Attorney General Jeff sessions,