Nearly
200 Democratic members of Congress are expected to file a federal
lawsuit on Wednesday accusing President Trump of violating the
Constitution by profiting from business dealings with foreign
governments.
The
plaintiffs — believed to be the most members of Congress to ever sue a
sitting president — contend that Mr. Trump has ignored a constitutional
clause that prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts, or
emoluments, from foreign powers without congressional approval.
It
is the third such lawsuit against Mr. Trump on the issue since he
became president, part of a coordinated effort by the president’s
critics to force him to reveal his business entanglements and either
sell off his holdings or put them in a blind trust.
Like
the previous two federal lawsuits, this one, to be filed in federal
court in Washington, accuses Mr. Trump of illegally profiteering from
his businesses in a variety of ways, including collecting payments from
foreign diplomats who stay in his hotels and accepting trademark
approvals from foreign governments for his company’s goods and services.
The
president’s critics are clearly hoping to find a federal judge who will
agree that the plaintiffs have enough standing to let a case proceed to
the fact-finding stage. "It is pretty much copy and paste from one suit
to another,” said Andy S. Grewal, a University of Iowa law professor
who has been critical of the lawsuits’ merits.
He
said the complaint from members of Congress was "the weirdest one”
because a court ruling that would for the first time in 230 years define
what constituted an emolument would also cover them. "They could be
really shooting themselves in the foot,” he said.
Yet
each new set of plaintiffs makes it harder for the Justice Department
to defend the president on the grounds that his opponents have no legal
standing to sue him, Mr. Trump’s critics said. "It puts the government
in the position of saying that nobody can address this — not hotel
competitors, not states, not members of Congress,” said Norman Eisen,
the chairman of CREW, which started the legal efforts. "And you cannot
get away with that in a rule-of-law system.”
Mr.
Blumenthal, a former Connecticut attorney general, said the president’s
companies did business in about 20 countries but were shrouded in
secrecy, making it impossible for Congress to carry out its
constitutional duty of determining whether he was receiving illegal
benefits or emoluments. "The truth is we have no clue about the
president’s investors,” he said in an interview with reporters Tuesday.
"How much is Russian money?”
"What we are seeking first and foremost is disclosure,” he said. "We cannot consent to what we don’t know.”
In
a response to the initial lawsuit, Justice Department lawyers argued
that the framers of the Constitution never intended to prevent a
president from owning a business or to ban ordinary, arms-length
commercial transactions. They also contended that even if the president
had violated the Constitution as his opponents allege, it is up to
Congress to take action, not a federal court.
Mr.
Trump’s defenders have said he has gone well beyond what is legally or
ethically required to distance himself from his companies, which are now
being run by his two adult sons.
Unlike
the previous two lawsuits, the lawsuit by members of Congress does not
accuse Mr. Trump of violating the so-called domestic emoluments clause
that bans him from accepting benefits from states or the federal
government. That is because the Constitution gives Congress no oversight
role there.
A
total of 196 members of Congress — nearly seven in 10 Senate Democrats
and nearly nine in 10 House Democrats, but not a single Republican —
joined the suit, Mr. Blumenthal said. He said members of Congress have
previously sued presidents, alleging that they had been wrongly deprived
of their right to carry out their constitutional duty.
But
the number who joined the emoluments lawsuit is unprecedented, because
the scope of the president’s business interests — and his alleged
violations — "is truly unprecedented,” he said.