Appeals Court Delivers Bad News to Trump on Hotel

Justices refuse to dismiss suit about president profiting from foreign business
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 14, 2020 9:49 AM CDT
Trump Gets Bad News in Lawsuit Over Hotel
The Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

President Trump lost a court battle Thursday over accusations that he's illegally making money from foreign governments while serving as president. A federal appeals court in Virginia refused to dismiss a case brought by the attorneys general of DC and Maryland in regard to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, reports NPR. The lawsuit argues that Trump is violating emoluments clauses in the Constitution that forbid the president from personally profiting from foreign governments. Trump has retained ownership in his family company, though his two oldest sons now run it. Foreign diplomats have stayed at the hotel.

"We recognize that the President is no ordinary petitioner, and we accord him great deference as the head of the Executive branch," wrote Judge Diana Motz of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, per the Washington Post. But the 9-6 decision—largely along party lines, notes Politico—said the court would not "grant the extraordinary relief the President seeks." This isn't the only such lawsuit. Congressional Democrats filed a similar one, though a different federal court ruled in favor of Trump in that one earlier this year. All of which means the matter is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court. A loss for Trump would likely require his company to turn over financial records. (More President Trump stories.)

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