EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE

Trump Faces Lawsuit Over Foreign Payments

Ethics groups charge president’s business income violates Constitution.

President Trump’s business empire will face an early test as a team of constitutional scholars and ethics lawyers plan to file a lawsuit Monday to prevent Trump from accepting payments from foreign governments. The lawsuit, which does not seek monetary compensation or damages, argues that Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits presidents from accepting payments from foreign powers—like the ones made at Trump’s hotels and golf courses, or by tenants that rent space in Trump Tower and happen to be government entities. Deepak Gupta, a Supreme Court litigator and one of the lawyers involved in the suit, said foreign payments could be seen as a way to curry favor with the U.S. president. The framers of the Constitution “understood that one way a republic could fail is if foreign powers could corrupt our elected leaders,” Gupta told The New York Times. Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, has dismissed the lawsuit as “political harassment.” Trump’s many potential conflicts of interest in his business dealings are the focus of several lawsuits being prepared by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is also supporting the lawsuit to be filed Monday.