This sparked a heated debate over a provision of the Constitution that most advocates know little about and that laymen could not pronounce: The Emoluments Clause.
The court’s action raises the question of how the judges will handle a myriad of other lawsuits and disputes over the former president, and whether Trump’s side may prevail, simply because he ran the bell and courts allowed him to do so.
One case for compensation was originally filed by lawyers for Washington, DC and Maryland, who argued that Trump was violating the Constitution by accepting payments from foreign and domestic governments through the Trump International Hotel. Another person was brought in by various members of the hospitality industry, who own or work in hotels and restaurants, who argued that they also had a competitive disadvantage because Trump did not use a blind trust when he took over the presidency , but rather retained an interest in his affairs. .
In dismissing the lawsuits Monday, no judge noticed a disagreement indicating that they all believe there is no case or controversy left because Trump is no longer in office.
Although the case in question has died down and appellate court rulings against the president have been vacated, DC Attorney General Karl Racine, who was behind one of the challenges, said all was not lost on his side.
“Our lawsuit has shown for the first time that the Emoluments clauses, centuries-old protection against corruption in the Constitution, can be applied and that the provisions mean that federal officials can accept nothing of value from foreign or domestic governments,” he said. Racine said.
“The decision of the Supreme Court,” he added, which swept away an opinion of the Court of Appeal, “does not interfere with the particular district court decisions establishing this critical precedent.”
But still, subpoenas that would continue to investigate Trump’s financial transactions will not continue now.
Whether the judge, J. Harvie Wilkinson, was correct is now an open question awaiting a similar dispute that may never come.
Trump’s Twitter account
The judges have not yet acted on a case over whether Trump violated the first amendment in 2017 when he blocked followers from his Twitter account. Just before he left office, Trump’s Justice Department argued that the dispute should be considered a contentious case and an opinion of the lower court filed against Trump should be erased under the same legal doctrine that the court quoted to evacuate the compensation cases.
But John Elwood of Arnold & Porter, who regularly argues before the Supreme Court, suggested in his own Twitter proposal that the court, even without Trump in office (or even on Twitter at this point), may choose not to have an opinion of the lower court to evacuate not opposed to Trump because President Joe Biden also has a personal account. Elwood suggested that there could still be a case or controversy at stake as it affects other government officials, and that judges could leave the opinion of the lower court that ruled against Trump in the books.
“Given unanswered questions, [there] there may be some reluctance to rent [the] Executive branch eliminates unfavorable precedents, ”Elwood tweeted.
Of course, future presidents are likely to have Twitter and other social media accounts.
Katie Fallow, a lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute who sued Trump, also said the case is difficult. But she makes the argument based on the fact that Trump’s ‘repeated violations’ of Twitter’s terms of service led to the company eventually closing its account. She told the judges in a case that they should not evacuate the decision of the appellate court.
“Here, the public interest in preventing inadmissible discrimination in the government’s social media accounts is very important in upholding the Second Circuit ruling,” Fallow wrote in court documents.
The court also did not act on Monday on matters relating to Trump policy regarding immigration and abortion referrals. It falls into another category because the government of Biden can repeal the relevant rules and regulations.
But a sensational case the judges have been sitting on since October is about a case that is critical to Trump. His personal lawyers asked the judges to draw up an opinion of the lower court that would allow a summons for his tax records in an investigation being conducted by a prosecutor in New York. The judges have said nothing so far, and now Trump is no longer in the White House. The court could have acted while Trump was president, but chose not to do so.
Did Trump run the clock successfully? He may have exceeded one watch, but the judges are well aware of something else. The Manhattan prosecutor may finally gain the upper hand in his goal of obtaining the documents, now that Trump is merely an ordinary citizen.