Trump Emoluments

[Belsnickel]

There was some news yesterday on the emoluments front. This is something I have been watching from the start, saying that immediately after he was inaugurated there would be a suit filed. There was, and it was dismissed due to lack of standing. DC and Maryland, however, have filed their own suit and it has been ruled to have standing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dc-maryland-may-proceed-with-lawsuit-alleging-trump-violated-emoluments-clause/2018/03/28/0514d816-32ae-11e8-8bdd-cdb33a5eef83_story.html

Quote:A federal judge ruled that the District of Columbia and Maryland may proceed with a lawsuit against President Trump alleging that Trump’s business dealings have violated the Constitution’s ban on receiving improper “emoluments,” or payments, from individual states and foreign governments.

The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Maryland, marks the first time that a lawsuit of this kind has cleared the initial legal hurdle — a finding that the plaintiffs have legal standing to sue the president.

In his opinion, Messitte gave credence to arguments by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) and Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) that Trump unfairly profits from business at downtown Washington’s Trump International Hotel, in which the president continues to hold a financial interest.

Messitte cited examples of government clients — including Kuwait and Bahrain —
patronizing the Washington hotel, possibly to the detriment of competitors and taxpayers. He wrote that Maryland and the District had sufficiently argued that Trump’s hotel “has had and almost certainly will continue to have an unlawful effect on competition.”