A Richmond federal appeals court was united on Thursday on one question: the emoluments issues raised by President Trump’s ownership of hotels while in office are virtually without precedent.
You can’t be a federal judge until you give up all your money.
Way to win the hearts and minds.
ETA. Definitely a mouth in motion before mind in gear moment.
9-6 clinton/obama appointees vs. reagan/bush/trump in 4th ciruit. Yeah, we’re not supposed to predict court decisions that way, except it works. Now if only TPM would do this bit of journamalism for us so we don’t have to individually look it up every time.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”
“That’s not the relief that’s requested,” the judge replied, asking Mooppan again what official duties would be impaired by an injunctive relief that forced Trump to stop accepting payments.
“I can’t give you a better answer than what I’ve given you,” Mooppan replied.
What a putz. “Mooppam”? Is this a Devin Nunes Dept. of Cows lawyer?
This Republican Judge willfully ignores the bigger picture and seems to be hell bent on holding the door open for future corporation candidates to hold the office of POTUS.
We are living in a pivotal moment in our country’s history.
“There is no evidence that the President has directly harmed anyone — we’re up here making it up, we’re winging it, there’s no history that authorizes it, no precedent that authorizes it,” Wilkinson said.
Following up on discobot’s post. J. Harvie Wilkinson is a very intelligent Judge. But seriously, does an allegation of a constitutional violation require “direct harm” to someone? What if someone runs for President and she’s only 27, and no State acts to keep her off the ballot. Would Wilkinson have the same response? Courts have jurisdiction over claims of constitutional violations. Standing may be an issue in some cases, but at some point it’s merely an obstacle to justice.
Oooh! Oooh! Call on me!
Ahem: Nobody thought there was an emoluments violation when George Washington sold his goods produced at Mount Vernon overseas. It wasn’t an emoluments violation when Barack Obama’s books were being sold to state-owned entities overseas. The emoluments clause is supposed to be stuff like gifts and bribes, not the sale of goods and services at market rates. Also, the corporate form of the Trump Organization shields the President from any emoluments violation.
You’re welcome, shitty DOJ attorney.
Unprecedented vs. Unmitigated?
It’s a toss-up…
So, let’s ignore the Emoluments Clause, it’s too inconvenient? That is what the courts are saying?
The lawyer arguing on behalf of Trump seems to be a moron.
What a surprise ! 
The issue is standing. To have standing to make a claim you must show that you personally are directly harmed by the action. The reason for the requirement, and the doctrine itself, are pretty esoteric, but they’re grounded in Article III that says federal courts have jurisdiction over “cases and controversies,” which has been interpreted to mean federal courts don’t give advisory opinions. That, in turn is based on a belief that only parties with a real interest in the case will give the court the kind of zealous advocacy that an adversarial system requires to work.
But it’s a fuzzy, gauzy doctrine in practice and ideological orientation notoriously often has a very powerful influence on whether a given judge finds standing exists in a given novel context.
The Fourth Circuit is my circuit. For most of my legal career, until Obama, it was notoriously, to use a word twice, one of the most conservative in the nation. Harvie Wilkenson is now as he always was, a hard-right ideologue of the Reaganite vintage who rarely votes against his ideological proclivities.
Indeed. I’ve been thinking about how flawed the SCOTUS appointments process is and possible ways to reform it without Constitutional amendment, and this is the exact angle I am thinking about: Predictability.
I propose a large panel of several hundred law professors be instituted. Appointments would be by multiple sources: Congress itself, POTUS, and states’ gov’ts. The panel members would secretly and independently review every case SCOTUS plans to hear each year (there aren’t many) and predict the ruling of each justice. Predictions would be logged into a secret database. Each year, each case’s votes would be secretly compared to the body of predictions, the resulting reports are never published. Some standard needs to be set in advance as to how predictable a justice is allowed to be, but if any justice demonstrates a pattern of high predictability, it will be deemed a lack of partisan independence, and deemed by the law instituting this system as “not good behavior” under the Constitutional requirement, so said justice would have to step down.
Knowing they will be secretly judged by a large body of their peers but not knowing how will keep justices on their toes and impel them to judge more on the merits than follow their own political calculations, which the R’s on the court so obviously do so much of the time.
“There is no evidence that the President has directly harmed anyone — we’re up here making it up, we’re winging it, there’s no history that authorizes it, no precedent that authorizes it,” Wilkinson said.
Yes, because there’s a precedent for every single situation that ever existed.
Way to dodge your historical responsibilities Harve.
George Washington didn’t sell his tobacco to the governments of England, France etc.
IANAL but isn’t all legal precedent founded on the first ruling on a case? So I’m probably not saying this correctly, but doesn’t there have to be first time for defining whether someone broke a law?
How about, “None.”
Or, "Not as many as are impaired daily by his ignorance and, well, his impairment.
@txlawyer
Because in each case, I believe, Washington and Obama (really sure about this one) didn’t directly sell their items to the public, domestic or overseas. There was in Washington’s case where he would have sold his crops to a broker. As for Obama he didn’t publish his own books, he didn’t print them, and he didn’t have staff in the WH taking orders and shipping them out. What he had was contract to write the books. He probably got an advance against royalties, and then, if it was in the contract monies for selling X amount of copies.
With Trump his rooms, his event spaces are being rented out by foreign nationals (and some aren’t even staying in the rooms they rented), so he’s making profit directly from the actions of the foreigners. I wonder though if each room that a foreign national rented had actually been occupied by that foreign national would the case be moot?
It jumps at ya, don’t it? Trump’s lawyer (DOJ Mooppan) is dying fast in this court.
Meanwhile Trump is working hard at the office: up to 109 Tweets as of 1 pm EST.
I believe the “harm” done is to everyone who can’t afford to book an entire floor at the Old Post Office.
It’s too bad we can’t “prove” Trump gives KSA the kid-glove treatment while they murder our sailors because they rent and buy numerous rooms and properties from him. We all know it’s happening, but let’s just pretend it’s not.