A federal appeals court in New York ruled Monday in favor of a group of hotel and restaurant owners suing President Donald Trump for alleged violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, allowing their lawsuit to stand and denying the president's request for a rehearing.
The 8-4 decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals could potentially result in a Supreme court appeal from Trump over the meaning of the constitutional block on federal officials ' self-dealing activities, reports The Hill.
Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a public interest group that is backing the lawsuit, said the organization is looking forward to continuing the case.
The lawsuit is just one of several involving Trump and the clause and claims he violated the Constitution when he refused to put his business assets in a blind trust, and then continuing to profit while serving as president to the detriment of competitors in the hotel and restaurant industries.
The case was initially dismissed in a federal court in New York in December 2017, which found that the plaintiffs did not have a legal right to sue Trump, but this past September, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit ruled by a 2-1 vote to allow the lawsuit to proceed, which led to Trump's request for the hearing by the full court.
Democrat lawmakers, in a separate case, petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling from a D.C. federal appeals court which said the lawmakers did not have the legal right to sue Trump, but the justices have not yet responded to the request. Also, in May, a federal court in Richmond, Va., refused to throw out an emoluments lawsuit, and after that, Trump's private counsel, Jay Sekulow, said that the Trump legal team would seek a Supreme Court review of the decision.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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