Just this morning a “progressive” watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging that President Trump is violating the constitution by owning business interests around the globe that are receiving payments from foreign governments (we covered it here: “Ethics Group Will Sue Trump On Monday Over Foreign Government Payments“).
Of course, as liberals continue their witch hunt for unconstitutional foreign payments to Trump businesses, something they completely overlooked when it came to the Clinton Foundation’s myriad of foreign entanglements, they don’t seem to be concerned at all with the increased security and insurance costs that the Trump Organization will undoubtedly have to bear as a result of his new title. Per the Associated Press:
As Trump remains a brand overseas, criminal gangs or militants could target buildings bearing his name in gold, abduct workers associated with his enterprises for ransom or worse, they say.
“They may kidnap a Trump worker and not even want to negotiate,” aiming for publicity instead, said Colin P. Clarke, a political scientist with the RAND Corporation who studies terrorism and international criminal networks.
U.S. brands have been targeted in overseas violence before, but they never belonged to a president. That’s the difference. Trump becoming America’s 45th president presents a unique challenge given the range of his international business interests.
Unfortunately, the Trump Organization owns and/or has licensed the “Trump” name to several luxury properties around the globe in cities that have been frequent targets of terrorist organizations.
But other properties are in areas that have seen violence, like Trump Towers Istanbul, the Turkish city hit hard by a string of bomb and gun attacks carried out by the Islamic State group. Flags and banners around the site bear the president’s name, while private security guards man X-ray machines and metal detectors at its entrances, a standard practice in the city.
In Bali, where bombs planted by the Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah targeting bar-goers killed 202 people in 2002, Trump’s organization has licensed the president’s name to a planned luxury resort. Bali police spokesman Hengky Widjaja said no one had requested extra security for the property and authorities had no plans to increase their presence there.
A Trump-named residential tower is under construction in the Indian city of Mumbai, which was hit by a 2008 terror attack blamed on the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba that killed 166 people. Mumbai police spokesman Ashok Dudhe said he had no knowledge of any additional security around the tower.
Another tower is being built in Manila in the Philippines, a nation where Abu Sayyaf militants conduct frequent kidnappings for ransom and where President Rodrigo Duterte wages a brutal crackdown on drug dealers that has killed thousands. Philippine police say they haven’t monitored any specific threat toward Trump properties, though a tower rising in Manila sits in an area under an intensified security watch after Duterte declared a “state of lawlessness” following a September bombing.
Asked about security issues, the Trump Organization said in a statement it has “extensive protocols in place at our Trump-owned and -managed properties” in the United States and abroad. The statement continued: “Our team continues to work very closely with local law enforcement and we are also working in tandem with the local developers at Trump-branded properties worldwide to ensure that all residents, guests and associates remain safe and secure.”
As we’ve previously pointed out, even though Trump’s attorneys maintain that it is impossible for the President of the United States to have “conflicts of interest,” he has agreed to donate all profits derived from foreign governments to the United States Treasury. That said, something tell us that fact was conveniently omitted from CREW’s lawsuit filed this morning.
via http://ift.tt/2kb9KXD Tyler Durden