Is that relevant? Isn’t the fact that he took the money an emolument?
Could President Trump show that he donates more to charity than he makes in foreign income from his hotel and is that a defense against emolumenting?
(and of course my answer is: it wasn’t an emolument in the first place for him to get the Nobel Prize money).
But if he had kept the Nobel money, would it have been an emolument then?
But that’s a matter of contract law, as signed by the publishing house and Obama. Trump’s ownership of the hotel means he gets dividends, not royalties. If the publishing house legally dissolved itself, Obama wouldn’t have a claim on its assets, just whatever outstanding accounts payable it has for remitting his cut of the sales of his book. I’m a little surprised someone as keen as yourself on legal precision is pursuing this line.
Yeah… I’m not sure that you *are *joking in any kind of jovial sense of the term, but no matter. Let’s say the hypothetical Kenyan Literary Guild is not a private organization but is under the control of the Kenyan government. I daresay you could indeed argue the award would count as an emolument, and it would be appropriate for Obama (I gather we’re assuming he’s in office at the time) to decline the cash award or, as he did with his Peace Prize money, donate it to a charitable organization.
It’s a 52 page ruling that hasn’t yet been published online so far as I can tell, and obviously he’s not ruling on the merits. But I understand that Judge Messitte did include some language that indicates disagreement with your definition of an emolument.
From CNN’s piece:
Are you a little enlightened?
Sure he did:
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
The Constitution, Art II, Sec 2, Clause 3 says in describing the duties of the President:
“…he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed…”
And, finally, the Immigration and Nationality Act is a law: 8 U.S.C. § 1101.
Is it your assertion that the oath of office prohibits prosecutorial discretion?
Well, there’s his escape clause - he has no ability, so his best effort is bound to be terrible, corrupt and incompetent.
Not guilty.
Nothing I said is contradicted by anything he said. So, while I believed I was already enlightened, you seem to disagree. But it’s fair to say that I have not changed any assertion I made after reading that, and you have still not identified anythign I said that is contradicted by his ruling.
And I am “concerned,” that the article suggests the judge’s feeling are relevant. But that’s liberals for you.
No! I don’t even argue that Obama violated his oath, or the clause.
But I aksed k9bfriender if Obama’s DACA actions violated his oath of office, and he said: “Well, yes, if he had taken an oath to faithfully execute immigration law, except that he didn’t take any such oath, so no.”
I then showed that he had taken such an oath, and now I await k9bfriender new effort to explain that up is down and water is dry in an effort to craft a rule that makes Trump a violator but excludes Obama.
Of course, neither one is.
Ah. I lost the ball in the back and forth.
How is ownership of the hotel relevant to the emoluments question? I agree the distinction you raise exists. I don’t see how that matter to the concept of emoluments. Can you explain?
OK, let’s say that. So according to you, when does the violation of the emoluments restriction happen? If he had taken it, held on to it, and then donated it to charity, would that count?
Same for Obama, I bet he tried as hard as he could to not defer action on child immigrants but just couldn’t
We’re gonna need another word. “Specific” has been thoroughly weaponized to mean an invitation to a nitpicking festival.
"Well, yes, it would appear at first glance that “See Spot run” has a simple and straightforward meaning, but it lacks specificity. There are any number of dogs named “Spot”, precisely which of them is being referenced? And does the word “see” imply an imperative, the reader is being directed to a specific action of ‘seeing’?
And is ‘Spot’ currently running? Or are we being advised that we should be sure to see Spot when, at whatever future occasion, he shall ‘run’? Are we being advised to keep Spot under constant surveillance and await the moment? Specifically?"
So, we can safely establish that precise and determined definitions are the very essence of reasoned argument. and a failure to do so weakens an argument to a fatal degree. No matter how minor and niggling the point may be, wrong is wrong, and if you’re wrong, you lose the argument!
Yes?
Jerry Brown serves as Governor of California. He was born in 1938, and is eligible for a pension from the state of California.
Let’s say Brown runs for President in 2020 and wins. May he collect his California pension while in office, or does that violate Article II § 1, cl. 7? (“The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.”)
Wouldn’t you, the lawyer, be the best person here to answer that question?
(Not that it has anything to do with the question of whether Trump is a Russian stooge anyway.)
Close. The problem with the lack of specifics is it allows the fallacy of equivocation – the same type of conduct that is unremarkable when done by another President is impeachable or criminal when done by Trump.
I ask for specifics because people are spouting non-specific platitudes like “undermine American interests,” which allows them to define Trumpy conduct as traitorous when it undermines interests they like and support, but ignore any prior presidential undermining when they agree the interests should be undermined.
A president that clamped down on NSA eavesdropping is undermining a governmental agency, but that would be cause for cheers, because the cheerleaders support a competing interest: privacy. But a president that clamps down on the EPA is traitorous, because the environment is more important than business.
This transforms “traitor,” into “someone who advances policies I dislike.”
For this reason, I ask for specifics. And for this same reason, I suspect you decline to provide them.
When politicians find that they have taken campaign money from someone they shouldn’t have, they either give the money back, or donate it to charity. He did not receive the money, he did not take the money. He directed the money to go elsewhere.
Not really, as that is offsetting a crime. Do you get away with murder because you assisted in a delivery? I would have no problem with the trump charitable foundation continuing to operate, giving out charitable contributions, even those recited from foreign sources. However, any of that money making its way into his pocket, yes.
And, of course, it is not as though the trump charity ever really paid out any charitable monies, so that is irrelevant as well.
If the money received from the hotels went directly to charity, then sure.
In my opinion, yes. If he had taken the money for his personal gain, then he would be beholden to a foreign govt. It is important to avoid not only the fact of corruption, but the perception as well.
Further is the fact of not only having received compensation from other governments, but expecting to receive them in the future as well. Was Obama looking to get another Nobel prize money?
Trump profits when the hotel profits, because he owns the hotel. Foreign leaders who visit Washington choose to stay at Trump’s hotel (as opposed to any number of other, equally suitable hotels) to curry favour with Trump.
I think a case could be made, but this particular congress won’t be the one to make it. Of course, we might plausibly expect an ethical president to take various steps to separate his duties and his personal assets, but Trump wasn’t elected to be ethical and with no expectation that he would become ethical - he was elected to be different, and the American people can signal their acceptance or opposition to this through the various legal means at their disposal.
The ethical way to handle it, I gather (and assuming such a hypothetical literary award counts as an emolument in the first place), would be to direct the Guild to forward the award directly to the named charity. If they cut Obama a check instead, he can endorse it over to said charity. In the unlikely event they just mail him a bag of cash, I’d expect just as matter of practicality that a White House staffer will open the package and reports its contents up the chain (I rather doubt a sitting president opens his own mail, particularly bulky packages), and he can direct the cash be forwarded on without him personally ever taking possession of it.
This is all irrelevant, anyway. Discussing the mechanics of some hypothetical action of Obama’s does nothing to mitigate the blatant corruption of Trump. Even if we decide to be generous and hold him to a mere “appearance of impropriety” standard, Trump took a shit all over that and moved on with a sneer even before he took office.
Here is one person that has accepted specifics:
I agree with the above completely.
Notice, Dear Readers, the difference here. He does not assert that Trump definitely has done these things. He BELIEVES Trump has, based on the evidence, but acknowledges this is a belief, a likelihood, not an objective, provable fact. He clearly identifies this as opinion.
And guess what? I have no objection to that. It’s a defensible conclusion to draw. I don’t agree, but I certainly admit a rational review of the facts could result in this conclusion.
He’d probably have to stop collecting the pension.
If, to make up for the lost pension money, he rented out his house to Putin at above market rates then acted extremely friendly to Russian interests, would that be deliciously emoluminty?
Do you believe that Trump covered up attempts, successful or otherwise, to modify vote totals? Or was the ‘sabotage’ more along the lines of the release of damaging information?