The Justice Department Suddenly Changed Its Mind About the Constitution to Defend Trump's Businesses

[mia]

Who's left to uphold the Constitution?

When Justice Department lawyers introduce themselves in court, they proclaim a specific affiliation: “I represent the United States.” That’s because the Justice Department has the responsibility by statute to represent the interests of the nation. That obligation to act on behalf of the nation has also motivated the Department’s legal advice on a question central to the integrity of our democracy — until now. Recent arguments show that the Department is putting President Trump’s interests before the nation’s....

Trump’s personal lawyers have argued that the emoluments clause allows Trump — and all federal officials — to accept unlimited amounts of money from foreign governments, as long as those payments are in the form of commercial transactions with a business owned by the federal official. Contradicting its entire history, the Department adopted Trump’s lawyers’ argument, contending that the emoluments clause only prohibits compensation in exchange for a “personal service in his capacity as [an] officeholder” — in other words, a bribe.

Under this new interpretation of the emoluments clause, the government’s engineers and scientists would still be prohibited from accepting travel reimbursements from a foreign government, but any federal official who owns a company may accept unlimited amounts of money from foreign governments through commercial transactions. In effect, the Justice Department now claims that our founders only wanted to prohibit officials from receiving a second salary from a foreign government....

Trump wants to personally benefit from foreign government payments, and therefore seeks a narrow interpretation of the emoluments clause. He has a right to advocate for that narrow interpretation, but it is his personal attorneys — not the Justice Department — that should make such arguments. While we do not know the exact source of this new logic, Trump’s Justice Department is effectively acting as if it is a private law firm. Government employees are supposed to act in the public interest, not anyone’s personal interest. This is a fundamental principle of government ethics. If Justice Department lawyers are going to say that they “represent the United States,” they better have the interests of the country — not the financial interests of the President — at heart.

http://time.com/5581308/trump-emoluments-justice-department/

[gratuitous]

1. Got it in one, Time; good job

The Department of Justice is acting more and more each day as if they are President Trump's personal law firm.

[Freethinker65]

2. So set up a business and bribes funneled to it are now acceptable?

That seems exactly what the founding fathers had in mind. Who are they kidding??

[duforsure]

3. trump is now picking which laws

He and only those he chooses can abide by , and which ones they can now ignore. And which ones he can use to prosecute others with that oppose him. Yet he claimed he the Law and Order candidate.

[safeinOhio]

4. Payments are suppose to go to the Prince.

Pay Don Jr. that’s the way it works in other banana republics.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. The will of the GRU must be defended!