Democrat House Foreign Affairs Chairman Warns Foreign Officials to ‘Cease and Desist’ Spending Money at Trump Hotels

Democrat House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (NY) on Tuesday announced he will be warning foreign officials against spending money at President Trump’s hotels, arguing it violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

The emoluments clause is a provision that bars US presidents from accepting gifts from foreign governments without permission from Congress first.

 

The Hill reported:

In a memo dated on Monday, Engel instructed Democratic committee staff who meet with foreign officials to warn that spending money at Trump-owned properties may be a violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which states that presidents cannot accept money or gifts from foreign governments without consent from Congress.

“When meeting with officials from a foreign government, please inform them that by providing any form of payment or benefit to a Trump-owned property their government is facilitating the president’s apparent violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause,” Engel’s memo states. “Please urge those foreign officials to transmit to their governments that the House Foreign Affairs Committee requests that they cease and desist payments to the Trump Organization unless and until Congress approves the emolument, as provided in the Constitution.”

Engel’s warning comes as a lawsuit brought by over 200 rabid Congressional Democrats seeking a DC federal court to require that Trump get approval from lawmakers before he accepts any financial benefits from foreign governments makes its way through the legal system.

Loser Democrat lawmakers, who couldn’t even run a successful lemonade stand, are targeting president Trump and accusing him of violating the very rarely litigated emoluments clause of the US Constitution by claiming his luxury hotels which are blocks from the White House is evidence Trump is receiving benefits.

Things aren’t looking so good for Engel and the Democrats because Trump already won a similar case in court brought by attorneys general in DC and Maryland.

In a huge win for Trump, the case against him was dismissed with prejudice.

Last month the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit filed by DC and Maryland claiming President Trump was violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution because foreign government officials stay at Trump’s DC hotel.

“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,” Judge Paul Niemeyer, a George H.W. Bush appointee wrote last month.

“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,” Niemeyer continued. “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 Democrats do not legislate. All they do is use time and resources to harass President Trump.