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WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Monday ended legal action over whether Donald Trump illegally profited from his presidency, saying the cases were moot now that Trump is no longer in office.
The High Court action was the first in a steady stream of orders and expected rulings on pending lawsuits involving Trump now that his presidency has ended. Certain orders may result in cases being rejected since Trump is no longer president. In other cases, proceedings that had been delayed because Trump was in the White House could resume and even accelerate their pace.
The judges dismissed Trump’s challenge to lower court rulings that allowed the lawsuits to go ahead, alleging that he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign officials and nationals who stay at the Trump International Hotel and sponsor other businesses owned by the former president and his family.
The high court also ordered lower court decisions also be overturned and ordered the New York and Richmond, Va., Appeals courts to dismiss the lawsuits as moot now that Trump is no longer in office. .
The result leaves no opinion of the appeals court in the books in an area of law that has rarely been explored in US history.
The cases involved lawsuits brought by Maryland and the District of Columbia, as well as upscale restaurants and hotels in New York and Washington, which “found themselves in the unenviable position of having to compete with companies owned by the President of the United States.”
The lawsuits targeted financial records showing how much state and foreign governments paid the Trump organization to stay and eat at Trump-owned properties.
Cases never got to the point where records needed to be turned over. But Karl Racine and Brian Frosh, the attorneys general for Washington, DC and Maryland respectively, said in a joint statement that a ruling by a Maryland federal judge who went against Trump “will serve as a precedent that will help prevent anyone from using the presidency or other federal office for personal financial gain, as President Trump has done for the past four years.
Other cases involving Trump remain in the Supreme Court or lower courts.
Trump tries to block Manhattan district attorney the execution of a subpoena for his tax returns, as part of a criminal investigation into the president and his businesses. Lower courts are assessing congressional subpoenas for Trump’s financial records. And the judges also have before them Trump’s appeal for a ruling banning him from blocking reviews on his Twitter account. Like the emoluments business, Trump’s appeal would seem moot now that he’s not in office and also has his Twitter account. suspended.
Republican senators and some legal scholars have said Trump’s Senate impeachment trial cannot proceed now that he is a private citizen again. But many academics have said Trump’s return to privacy does not stand in the way of an impeachment trial.
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