Trump Seeks to Sink Second Lawsuit Saying He Profits From Office

Fresh off a victory in New York, Trump administration attorneys will reprise their argument that the president can’t be sued for benefiting from his business interests by people who can’t prove they’ve been harmed.

Last time around, President Donald Trump’s lawyers persuaded a New York federal judge to reject claims pressed by an ethics-in-government group. Now, the fight is closer to home as Justice Department attorneys seek to convince a Maryland judge that Trump’s ownership of a posh Washington hotel blocks from the White House isn’t drawing customers away from tax-paying businesses there and in the District of Columbia.

DC Attorney General Karl Racine and his Maryland counterpart Brian Frosh, both Democrats, sued the president in June seeking an order compelling him to divest his business interests. They accused him of breaching U.S. constitutional provisions barring the nation’s chief executive from profiting from his office.

"Previous presidents have taken great care to comply with these core anti-corruption provisions,” the AGs said in court papers opposing the administration’s request to dismiss the case. “President Trump, however, has done the opposite. He has not only continued to accept financial benefits from governments, but has actively targeted their business, thereby fostering a market for influence over the nation’s chief executive."

Accepting the attorneys general’s arguments would disqualify the president from serving while maintaining commercial business interests, Trump’s lawyers said.

No Harm

"Those claims falter on threshold grounds: neither plaintiff has alleged an injury" that would allow them to sue, government lawyers said. "In fact, within the two jurisdictions, the president has an ownership interest in only one active business, the Trump International Hotel."

U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte has scheduled a 5 1/2-hour hearing for Thursday in Greenbelt for the two sides to make their arguments.

Seth Barrett Tillman -- an American law professor who teaches at Ireland’s Maynooth University -- sided with Trump, arguing in a court filing that business transactions for value don’t count as constitutionally prohibited "emoluments."

Twenty-two former government officials, including former U.S. secretaries of state John Kerry and Madeleine Albright -- both Democrats -- and Republican Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary under President Barack Obama, backed the attorneys general.

The government’s argument “would give the president license to engage in a wide range of financial entanglements that could leave vulnerable even the most important national security and foreign policy interests of the United States," they said in a Nov. 28 submission to the judge.

In November, Messitte ordered 23 Trump businesses, including the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, to retain records in response to subpoenas received from the attorneys general. That would preserve evidence if the lawsuit is allowed to go ahead.

Last month, U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York threw out a lawsuit by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, concluding they hadn’t sufficiently alleged they’d been harmed by the president.

Trump Beats Suit Targeting Business Dealings With Foreigners

The administration is also seeking dismissal of a Washington federal court case lodged by scores of Democratic lawmakers.

The case is District of Columbia v. Trump, 17-cv-1596, U.S. District Court, District of Maryland (Greenbelt).