Supreme Court Tosses Emoluments Lawsuits Against Trump, Calling Them Moot
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a pair of emoluments lawsuits against former President Donald Trump, ruling the cases are moot now that he’s left office.
The lawsuits were filed by the attorneys general for Maryland and Washington, D.C., and the government watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Both alleged Trump violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by continuing to control and profit from his Trump Organization empire while in office.
The two lawsuits, and a third brought by Democratic members of Congress, charged Trump’s tangled web of businesses, including his hotel in the nation’s capital, enabled him to accept unconstitutional payments from foreign governments and other entities, opening him up to potential conflicts of interest.
The third case was dismissed by the Supreme Court last year.
In a statement released Monday, Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, said “this important litigation made the American people aware for four years of the pervasive corruption that came from a president maintaining a global business and taking benefits and payments from foreign and domestic governments.
“Only Trump losing the presidency and leaving office ended these corrupt constitutional violations stopped these groundbreaking lawsuits,” Bookbinder said.
