The Supreme Court on Monday tossed out two cases challenging whether foreign governments exerted financial power over former President Donald Trump when they paid for rooms in his luxury Washington, D.C., hotel. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI |
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Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday tossed out two cases that dealt with whether businesses owned by former President Donald Trump unfairly profited during his time in political office.
The cases, brought by a non-profit and the District of Columbia and state of Maryland were sent back to lower appeals courts to "dismiss as moot" because Trump lost the 2020 election and was no longer president.
The cases centered on whether Trump's business operations, including his hotels in New York and Washington, D.C., violated the Constitution's emolument clause, which bans sitting presidents from receiving gifts from foreign or local governments.
For the four years of Trump's presidency, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, the non-profit that filed one of the cases on behalf of high-end hotels and restaurants in New York, claimed that Trump accepted gifts from foreign governments when diplomats stayed in his New York properties.
The government lawyers in D.C. and Maryland said foreign officials staying at Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel were able to buy influence.
Both groups asked to withdraw the suits after Biden's win in November.
Federal appeals courts in New York and Richmond had advanced the cases before the election.
"The emoluments lawsuits @CREWcrew participated in 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," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder tweeted Monday.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine and Maryland's AG Brian Frosh said in a joint statement that "we are proud that because of our case, a court ruled on the meaning of 'emoluments' for the first time in American history, finding that the Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting almost anything of value from foreign or domestic governments."
"Our case proves once again that in our country no one -- not even the president of the United States -- is above the law," the two states's top attorneys said.