Trump’s Doral pick will be used against him

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats filed a legal brief in federal court on Tuesday asserting that President Donald Trump’s promotion of his Doral resort for the G-7 summit was further evidence he has violated the Emoluments Clause, despite his decision to reverse course.

The initial announcement last week — from Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, as he stood behind the official White House podium — provided the president’s personal property with “invaluable publicity” that in and of itself may amount to an emolument, a House Democratic source said.

Democratic lawmakers and their aides debated how to proceed over the weekend, after the president tweeted that he had reversed the decision and would not hold the G-7 summit at his Florida resort, only three days after Mulvaney’s announcement.

The office of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, confirmed to McClatchy that the brief had been filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday, explicitly citing the selection of Trump National Doral Miami as evidence that Trump is profiting off the presidency. Blumenthal is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against Trump by 30 Democratic senators and 166 House members in 2017.

“The president may have decided, for now, not to go ahead with his plan to hold the G-7 summit at his Doral resort, but the fact that he even thought about it underscores once again that he has zero regard for the Foreign Emoluments Clause,” Blumenthal said in a statement to McClatchy. “That’s why my lawsuit to hold the president accountable to the Constitution is so important.”