Huffman: Liabilities still remain even after Trump’s emoluments case tossed by court
The Supreme Court has tossed out a case accusing former President Donald Trump of illegally benefiting from his position as president, but North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman said the prosecution of the former president is far from over.
The justices threw out Trump’s challenge to lower court rulings that had allowed lawsuits to go forward alleging that he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel and patronize other businesses owned by the former president and his family.
The high court also ordered the lower court rulings thrown out as well and directed appeals courts in New York and Richmond, Virginia, to dismiss the suits as moot now that Trump is no longer in office.
“Federal courts often look for reasons not to render decisions so it’s not a huge surprise,” Huffman said. “But it really tells us that we have work to do to put some legislative structure behind this obscure constitutional provision that nobody imagined we would ever need to use.”
There’s no additional remedy available for the business owners who were financially impacted as a result, Huffman said, but the “focus should really be on making sure that a president cannot ever do this again.”
The U.S. Constitution forbids public officials from receiving any benefits by virtue of holding office without the consent of Congress. Congress can bolster statutory provisions that outline how that approval must be sought and granted, define what an emolument is, and prevent presidents from “running out the clock, which is essentially what President Trump did here,” Huffman said.
“By delaying justice, he ended up denying justice,” Huffman said.
Throughout litigation, Trump’s attorneys used a variety of “baseless” arguments, including “claiming that the benefits he was receiving didn’t constitute emoluments,” but that was “enough to run out the clock,” Huffman said.
“They got themselves to the point where the Supreme Court said he’s gone and so now the case is moot,” he said.
The former president still faces a host of other criminal and civil liabilities for behavior such as “his role in conspiring to induce voter fraud in Georgia,” tax evasion, fraud and campaign finance violations, and “inciting sedition and rioting on Jan. 6,” to name a few, he said.
“So there’s a lot of criminal exposure likely coming his way,” Huffman said.
All of that would be handled by state and federal prosecutors, Huffman said, “and being out of office fundamentally changes his liability and his ability to stop us from finding out things, such as his tax returns.”
That will allow officials to get a full picture of Trump’s finances, who he owes “hundreds of millions of dollars, what country they’re from,” whether he’s evaded taxes and the like, he said.
“He got away with these things for a while,” Huffman said, “for the four-year period of his presidency, but the bill is coming due.”