Biden Now As Safe From Emoluments Attack As Trump?

Even though 2 appeals courts let lawsuits proceed challenging President Trump’s “personal aggrandizement” while in office, I’ll say it any way: “The suits were goofy.” In dismissing the courtroom challenges under the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” the U.S. Supreme Court this week simply said the “issue was moot” now that Mr. Trump is out of office. But, had it not at least punted on that procedural ground, we’d be faced with the absurd possibility that George Washington could have been sanctioned for running his plantation businesses & distillery while president and ditto for all future WH inhabitants. No?

Mr. Trump’s lawyers called the suits “harassment.” But, the complaints themselves just sound petty if not weird, the appellate courts giving them some weight notwithstanding. As the WSJ noted, one suit by the Maryland & DC AGs griped that the president’s hotels “enjoyed an unfair advantage over” others in the region because, natch, foreign execs would go you know where rather than you know where. Yet, what was Mr. Trump or any other POTUS in his shoes supposed to do? Be like Kris Kringle in “Miracle on 54th Street” & send his Macy’s customers to Gimbels? Similar gripes in New York over “improper benefits” & demands that, dang nab it, “they be stopped” were likewise more appropriate before Judge Judy than a real court of law.

Will President Biden now be hit with lawsuits in Md & DC because he and his investment family “enjoy an unfair advantage” from corrupt China or are receiving “improper benefits” from old pals in the Ukraine? Of course not.

Davd Soul