On June 14, 2017, 30 senators and 171 members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed this lawsuit against President Trump in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs sought declaratory relief establishing that President Trump violated the U.S. Constitution by accepting monetary or nonmonetary benefits from a foreign state without first obtaining “the Consent of the Congress” as required by the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In addition, the Plaintiffs, represented by the Constitutional Accountability Center, sought injunctive relief ordering President Trump not to accept any such benefits from a foreign state without first obtaining “the Consent of the Congress.”

The Plaintiffs alleged that President Trump failed to come to Congress to seek its consent for at least some foreign emoluments that had been the subject of public reporting. President Trump had stated that some of the more than 500 entities that he owned had received funds and profits from payments made by foreign governments, and public reporting had confirmed instances of such transactions made since President Trump took office. Examples included the President’s acceptance of intellectual property rights from the Chinese government, acceptance of payments from foreign diplomats staying his hotels in Washington D.C., and acceptance of licensing fees from the United Kingdom government for his television show, “The Apprentice”—all in 2017. By accepting these benefits, the Plaintiffs alleged that President Trump had (1) thwarted the transparency that the “Consent of the Congress” provision was designed to provide, (2) denied Plaintiffs the opportunity to give or withhold their “Consent” to his acceptance of individual emoluments, and (3) had injured Plaintiffs in their roles as members of Congress.

An amended complaint was filed on August 15, 2017 adding additional House members as plaintiffs and amending some of the factual allegations. On September 15, 2017, President Trump filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, lack of cause of action under the Foreign Emoluments Clause and failure to state a claim under the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

On September 28, 2018, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan denied in part and deferred in part the September 15, 2017 motion to dismiss. 335 F.Supp.3d 45. The court found the plaintiffs had standing to sue the President for allegedly violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause and deferred the ruling on the remaining arguments in the motion to dismiss. President Trump sought certification for interlocutory appeal of the court’s ruling on October 22, 2018.

This case is pending appeal and is ongoing as of March 14, 2019.

Robert Carnes - 10/27/2017
Robert Carnes - 02/05/2018
Virginia Weeks - 03/11/2018
Erica Becker - 03/14/2019


compress summary