No doubt about standing. These business owners have been verifiably damaged by Trump’s willful refusal to separate himself from his businesses. I hope more sign on to make this a real serious lawsuit.
Great news.
The addition of the new plaintiffs is an effort to address questions about whether the watchdog group could prove it was directly affected by Trump’s business arrangement, thus giving it standing to sue.
Gotta get past that first biggest hurdle. I’ve read that this is a great way to get the taxes, but no court will hear such a request without first granting plaintiffs standing, so good luck.
And OT, but close: Schneiderman hired a corruption prosecutor from Bharara’s office, doesn’t look like it’s Preet himself. He’s at NYU now?
https://twitter.com/mikefarb1/status/854051737942069248
The addition of the new plaintiffs is an effort to address questions about whether the watchdog group could prove it was directly affected by Trump’s business arrangement, thus giving it standing to sue.
Once the American people have access to his tax returns, I presume that universe of people having standing will expand exponentially. In many ways, he is robbing us all…and his policies vis a vis his tax liabilities will go a long way to highlight that in regards to his business ventures.
In using the authority of his office to ameliorate any of those loses and liabilities, we all are subject to his decisions, that lack any transparency one way or another. For all we know, he is making those unprecedented Un-Presidential decisions based purely on how it will benefit him personally in which we will all be affected.
Nothing will bring Trump down until he becomes too much of a liability for too many Republicans on Capitol Hill. As despicable as Mike Farb’s list is,without consequences for the R’s in DC, impeachment won’t happen.
Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe is saying adding these plaintiffs will make it virtually impossible for the Shitgibbon to weasel out of the lawsuit now. Good times.
And that seems to be growing by the day.
Good. The more litigation Trump has to fight, the merrier for those of us who think he’s completely unfit to sit in the Oval Office.
Is there any other basis he’s ever used for any decision he’s ever made in his life?
That is why we need to kick their collective asses in 2018 to scare the living shit out of them (and take over the House and Senate.)
Unfortunately, Trump will have the “trump card” (sorry) of a shooting war with North Korea in his back pocket for the 2018 elections and if it looks like they will lose the house he WILL PLAY IT, knowing full well that the country ALWAYS rallies round the party in power during a WAR. Hell, he might even SUSPEND the elections by declaring a “national emergency” and “martial law” due to the use of atomic weapons by NK and nuclear weapons by the US in response, destroying the entire world economy and causing a massive worldwide depression that will make the 1929 stock-market crash look quaint by comparison.
Do not put it past him. He has no conscience whatsoever as his narcissistic paranoia and delusional thinking will push him to “defend his manhood” if a shooting war breaks out, terrified of “losing” he will use all means at his disposal.
Our only hope (oh. your. god.) is that CHINA can broker some kind of deal to bring down the tensions in the area, maybe by offering Trump a new casino in Maccau to distract him from his bellicose chest-thumping as China would be dragged down with the rest of the world economy and NOBODY wants nuclear fallout on their borders (not to mention the millions of refugees pouring over the NK/China border that they would have to deal with.)
“…maybe by offering Trump a new casino in Maccau…”
Sure–But he would just bankrupt that one, too.
Personally, I don’t see that. Pew’s latest poll shows (released yesterday) 82pct of gop/lean gop approve of Trump. So the base isn’t applying any pressure, at least not yet.
And the GOP leadership can stall Congressional investigations or drag them out for months.
As for being tried for a crime while in office, there is no provision for it in the Constitution. The prevailing opinion is no, because it a president can’t adequately perform his/her duties while defending him/herself in criminal court. That helps protect the Capitol Hill GOP leadership.
So while there is pressure right now, I think we’re very very very far from the volume and intensity of what it will take for Congress to remove Trump from office.
Although I can understand the desire to get standing by having someone directly damaged through unfair competition, this seems to me to be in some ways almost the inverse of the original purpose of the emoluments clause. The idea of putting it in the constitution, it seems to be, was to make sure that the government and the people weren’t disadvantaged by having someone in government employment who was effectively in the pay of a foreign power and hence loyal to them. This, rather, is about someone who is using the power of their office to increase their private profit, and should rightly be unlawful even if all the people seeking to curry favor by paying money to trump-owned enterprises were US persons.
OT but…
Don’t just refer to other articles. Write something, for the love of Mike!
Corruption, bribery, kickbacks, lying, money laundering, insider trading, espionage and treason should be decriminalized, made legal and enshrined in the First Amendment as long as it is done for money, power, faith or family.
I sure would like to see something more than a guy’s tweets to back this up.
You are right. Upon re-reading Sean Spicer’s statement, it is apparent that he is stating Preshitident Trump leaked the tax return himself. Trump went out of the way to criticize the journalist David Cay Johnston who received and analyzed the return.
From your mouth to God’s ear.