Saudi Arabia

Discovery in Emoluments Clause case to be resisted by the Grifter-in-Chief

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Grifter-in-Chief Donald Trump’s lawyers made a desperate last-minute bid over the weekend to block the discovery process in the Emoluments Clause case filed by the Attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia.  U.S. District Court Judge Peter Messitte rejected their arguments.

The attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia have wasted no time in seeking discovery. Maryland and District of Columbia Seek Business Records Related to Trump Hotel:

The State of Maryland and the District of Columbia began issuing subpoenas on Tuesday for records related to President Trump’s hotel in Washington, seeking evidence of conflicts of interest that violate the Constitution’s anti-corruption provision.

See Subpoena For Documents (.pdf) to U.S. Department of Commerce (for payments made to Trump International Hotel, etc.), and Subpoena For Documents (.pdf) to DJT Holdings, LLC (for financial records from as many as 13 of President Trump’s private entities, including all state and federal business income tax returns, etc.) Production of documents is due on January 3, 2019.

The subpoenaed documents could lead to depositions with Trump Organization officials.

Their demands for a vast array of documents, including tax records related to the president’s business, are certain to run headlong into a legal challenge by the administration. The Justice Department is expected to contest rulings by a federal judge who allowed the litigation to go forward, and the case appears bound for the Supreme Court.

The governments of Maryland and the District of Columbia are claiming that Mr. Trump is violating the emoluments clauses of the Constitution by accepting payments from foreign leaders or state officials who patronize the Trump International Hotel, which is on Pennsylvania Avenue just blocks from the White House. They are seeking documents from about a dozen entities connected to Mr. Trump’s business, including the trust in which he placed assets when he became president, as well as from numerous other entities.

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The Trump crime family cashes in before the Special Counsel closes in

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Most of you are already familiar with the three emoluments clause cases filed against Donald Trump for profiting off of foreign governments at his properties as president.

The first case filed by the ethics group CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) was dismissed for lack of standing, but that case is currently on appeal.

In the second case brought by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia (No. 8:17-cv-01596), U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte of the District of Maryland ruled that D.C., Maryland can proceed with lawsuit alleging Trump violated emoluments clauses. Judge Messitte rejected an argument made by critics of the lawsuit — that, under the Constitution, only Congress may decide whether the president has violated the emoluments clauses. But Messitte’s ruling also narrowed the lawsuit’s scope to the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., saying that the District and Maryland had standing to sue because they could plausibly claim to have been injured by Trump’s receipt of payments from foreign and state governments.

The third case was filed by more than 200 Democratic members of Congress, Blumental et. al v. Trump in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:17-cv-01154), and is presently scheduled for a hearing on a motion to dismiss on June 7, 2018.

The Trump Hotel is only the tip of the iceberg according to reporting over the past week.

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Saudi Arabia faces a royal dilemma

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President Obama visited Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on January 27 to pay his respects to the late King Abdullah and establish ties with newly reigning King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, age 78. The importance of Saudi petroleum and regional securityPres O and King Salman concerns arising from matters like the Islamic State (ISIS) problem factored into the president’s discussions with King Salman. Governed by a traditional monarchy, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is home to 16% of world proved oil reserves. It is the world’s largest exporter of petroleum. Saudi Arabia accounts for around 19% of current world crude oil exports with 68% of shipments going to countries in Asia, 19% to the Americas and about 10% to Europe.

Until the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire controlled the area along Saudi Arabia’s west coast, including the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, and much of the coast on the eastern side. The interior, a land of unforgiving desert, was the domain of fractious Bedouin tribes. Over time, the al-Saud clan rose to supremacy. After a 30 year campaign of conflict and tribal alliances secured through marriages, its shrewd leader, Ibn Saud, unified the country in 1932. It had been a long process, a previous attempt by the al-Saud tribe to make a state had been wrecked by the Ottomans in 1818.

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