Tag: Trump abuse of the U.S. Constitution

Behind Trump’s Latest Threat To Press Freedom

Wednesday was an ominous day for freedom of the press in this country, and I want to tell you why.

You may have heard or seen that President Trump filed a libel suit against the New York Times. Perhaps you weren’t surprised: the president is known to frequently disparage the Times even as he reads it obsessively. Borrowing a page from what I’ve referred to before as a Mount Rushmore of totalitarians, Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, Trump loves to call the press the “enemy of the people.”

But Wednesday’s suit is an important step beyond bluster to try to silence the press using the legal system — and just days after the president announced that he considers himself the country’s “chief law enforcement officer.” Continue reading.

Trump Campaign Spent $1.8 Million On Trump’s Own Businesses, Records Reveal

“I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it,” Trump once told Fortune magazine.

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign steered a total of $1.8 million to the president’s businesses last year, according to the latest campaign finance filings.

The Trump camp spent close to $200,000 on Trump-owned properties and businesses in the last quarter of 2019 alone, according to an analysis of the Federal Election Commission filings by the Center for Responsive Politics and The New York Times.

There were 150 payments to Trump “entities and properties,” according to the Times. Continue reading.

Impeachment trial, like much of Trump’s presidency, is unprecedented

Outcome could set new standards for presidential behavior and congressional oversight

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, like many of his administration’s actions before it, has ventured into uncharted legal territory.

The trial lacks definitive answers on key issues, either from federal courts or the Senate itself, which has fed an undercurrent of uncertainty about what happens next in an institution usually steeped in precedents and traditions.

How the Senate tackles these issues over the coming days — from the bar for removing a president to how witnesses testify at an impeachment trial — likely will set standards for presidential behavior and congressional oversight efforts long after Trump leaves office. Adding to the uncertainty were reports late Tuesday that there were now enough votes to call witnesses, but how many and the manner in which they would be examined or deposed was unknown. Continue reading.

Presidential historian: Martha McSally’s unhinged outburst proves GOP has become a ‘monarchist party’ and ‘cult of personality’

AlterNet logoPresidential historian Jon Meacham is known for looking at the big picture, and he did exactly that on Tuesday during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when he analyzed Arizona Sen. Martha McSally’s recent outburst at CNN reporter Manu Raju.

Last week, Raju asked McSally if she wanted new evidence to be included in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. And the Arizona Republican angrily responded, “You’re a liberal hack. I’m not talking to you. You’re a liberal hack.”

According to Meacham, McSally’s outburst wasn’t an anomaly or an isolated incident but rather, was designed to express her unwavering devotion to Trump. Such behavior on McSally’s part, Meacham told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, is characteristic of a “monarchist party” and a “cult of personality. Continue reading.

Investors ‘balked’ at Trump’s plan to personally make $2 million per room leasing government building: WSJ

AlterNet logoOne of President Donald Trump’s schemes to make money in office does not appear to be going as planned, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.

In October, the Trump Organization was harshly criticized after it announced it would be selling its rights to Trump International Hotel D.C.

The Trump family does not actually own the building, which was formerly the historic Old Post Office building but has a long-term lease with the federal government. Continue reading.

In 2019, Trump Visited Golf Clubs At Least Once Every Five Days

Donald Trump spent 24 percent of his days — more than one out of five — in 2019 visiting his own golf courses, according to the most recent count from CNN.

According to the outlet, Trump went to his golf resorts for at least 86 days last year and was at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, to close out the year.

“This year alone, he spent at least 86 days at a golf club, despite a late start due to the government shutdown,” CNN reported. “The golf excursions have included the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia; his Bedminister, New Jersey, golf club; Trump National Doral outside Miami; and Trump International Doonbeg in Ireland.” Continue reading

With yet another Mar-a-Lago trip, the taxpayer bill for Trump’s stays at his own resorts tops $118 million

AlterNet logoBecause a wizened fortune teller once told Donald Trump that he would die unless he visited one of his golf resorts at least once per week, a rough approximation of the “vampire must sleep on the dirt of his home country” restrictions on immortality, Donald Trump is closing out the year by visiting one of his golf resorts. Specifically, he flew off to the international spy and lobbyist haven of Mar-a-Lago. Yet again.

That means that the American public has now spent over $118 million sending Donald Trump to his own for-profit real estate holdings during the first three years of his term. That covers travel to and from Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, his Scotland and Ireland resorts; his Secret Service protection; the staff he takes with him; and so forth. Whenever Trump travels to one of his properties, his necessary staff must book rooms there as well, and the Secret Service gets charged for everything from golf carts to meals. And we don’t know how much of that Donald Trump is personally pocketing because he won’t tell us. At a bare minimum, it’s in the millions.

To give some idea of just how much money $118 million is, that is more than 12 Starbucks coffees. Or, as HuffPo’s S.V. Date puts it, it is “the equivalent of 296 years of the $400,000 presidential salary that his supporters often boast he is not taking.” Continue reading

DOJ says Congress can’t stop Trump Org from taking foreign payments — despite Constitution’s emoluments clause

AlterNet logoThe so-called emoluments clause has been the center of a case that many legal scholars have been making that President Donald Trump is regularly violating the Constitution by continuing to accept payments from foreign governments via his businesses.

The Washington Post reports that an attorney from the Trump Department of Justice argued on Monday that the emoluments clause doesn’t actually prevent Trump from accepting payments from foreign governments, even though the clause specifically states that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The only role that the Constitution gives Congress with respect to the foreign emoluments clause is to allow them,” DOJ attorney Hashim Mooppan argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Continue reading

Kentucky governor’s stay at Trump hotel could carry legal implications for president

Washington Post logoGov. Matt Bevin’s 2018 visit to Trump’s D.C. hotel likely to become fodder for plaintiffs in cases against Trump.

When Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin came to Washington in January for two nights — one of many visits the Republican had made to the nation’s capital — he stayed at President Trump’s D.C. hotel. Kentucky taxpayers initially footed the $686 bill, records obtained by The Washington Post show.

Although Kentucky’s Republican Party reimbursed the state for Bevin’s stay two months later, the transaction may still run afoul of an anti-corruption provision of the Constitution barring the president from receiving any “emoluments,” or payments, from the states, legal experts say.

In two cases wending their way through federal court, plaintiffs have alleged that Trump — by retaining his financial interest in his companies and doing business with state governments — has violated the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause. A central example cited by plaintiffs has been visits to the hotel by fervent Trump supporter and Republican Paul LePage, while he was governor of Maine.

View the complete November 21 article by Jonathan O’Connell and David A. Fahrenthold on The Washington Post website here.

Trump Says Founders Never Wanted Congress To Impeach A President

Donald Trump complained on Tuesday that America’s founders didn’t want presidents to be impeached, going so far as to say it is something they “never thought possible.” Trump’s comments came just before he presided over a Cabinet meeting.

“It’s a scam,” Trump said of the House impeachment inquiry. “They’re doing something that the founders never thought possible, and the founders didn’t want. And they’re using this impeachment hoax for their own political gain to try and damage the Republican Party and damage the president.”

Trump falsely claims that the impeachment hearings “have had the opposite effect,” saying with no evidence that “I’m the highest I’ve ever been in the polls.” In fact, a recent poll showed the majority of Americans support impeaching Trump, and his average approval rating continues to hover at just 41 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight.

View the complete November 19 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.