Trump Beats Democrats’ Emoluments Lawsuit

Trump’s ‘best week‘ has just gotten a little better, after the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit tossed out Congressional Democrats’ third attempt to nail Trump after claiming he is in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.

In a Friday decision, the court vacated a district court judge’s ruling that the Democrats had standing to sue Trump for accepting foreign payments at his Washington DC hotel, according to law.com – adding that the court would not participate in a political debate.

“Because we conclude that the Members lack standing, we reverse the district court and remand with instructions to dismiss their complaint, said Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Thomas Griffith and David Tatel in a per curiam opinion.

They found that, after past U.S. Supreme Court rulings on individual legislators’ ability to sue, “only an institution can assert an institutional injury provided the injury is not ‘wholly abstract and widely dispersed.’”

“Here, regardless of rigor, our conclusion is straightforward because the members—29 Senators and 186 members of the House of Representatives—do not constitute a majority of either body and are, therefore, powerless to approve or deny the President’s acceptance of foreign emoluments,” the opinion reads. –law.com

“The Members can, and likely will, continue to use their weighty voices to make their case to the American people, their colleagues in the Congress and the president himself, all of whom are free to engage that argument as they see fit,” the judges added. “But we will not—indeed we cannot—participate in this debate.”

As law.com notes, the ruling may finally signal the end of a lawsuit that has now stretched into its third year.