Appeals court hands Trump win, rules Dem lawmakers cannot sue over business payments

[rangerrebew]

Another One Bites The Dust: Appeals Court Throws Out Democrat Congressional Emoluments Lawsuit Against Trump
 
Posted by Mary Chastain      Friday, February 7, 2020 at 11:18am

The three judges agreed “the lawmakers didn’t have legal standing to proceed with their claims.”
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/   

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “threw out a lawsuit by more than 200 Democratic members of Congress that alleged President Trump was improperly profiting from his presidency.”

The three judges ruled unanimously. They agreed “the lawmakers didn’t have legal standing to proceed with their claims.”

In the opinion, the judges said the Democratic lawmakers “couldn’t assert the institutional interests of the House or Senate against the president because the group didn’t constitute a majority in the legislature and couldn’t represent Congress as a whole.”

[Cyber Liberty]

Keep an eye on the Emoluments angle.  If the Rats ever pry Trump's tax returns out, they will go over them with a fine-tooth comb and claim some obscure transaction falls under the prohibition.  Impeachment Article comes immediately after.

[txradioguy]

A federal appeals court on Friday unanimously ruled that more than 200 Democratic congressional lawmakers do not have standing to sue President Trump over allegations he violated the Emoluments Clause over foreign payments to his businesses.

“Because we conclude that the Members lack standing, we reverse the district court and remand with instructions to dismiss their complaint,” the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in its ruling.

“The [House] Members can, and likely will, continue to use their weighty voices to make their case to the American people, their colleagues in the Congress and the President himself, all of whom are free to engage that argument as they see fit,” the court continued. “But we will not – indeed we cannot – participate in this debate.”

The court added that “the Constitution permits the Judiciary to speak only in the context of an Article III case or controversy and this lawsuit presents neither.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/appeals-court-hands-trump-win-rules-dem-lawmakers-cannot-sue-over-business-payments

[PeteS in CA]

Keep an eye on the Emoluments angle.  If the Rats ever pry Trump's tax returns out, they will go over them with a fine-tooth comb and claim some obscure transaction falls under the prohibition.  Impeachment Article comes immediately after.

Yep, that whole tax returns shtick is a fishing expedition to find something obscure or complicated that can be twisted into campaign  ad material, lawsuits, or shampeachment articles.

More about this:

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/02/07/appeals-court-dems-no-standing-sue-trump-emoluments-clause/

Activist groups and unions didn’t have standing to sue Donald Trump under the Emoluments Clause. States and private competitors didn’t have standing to sue either, the 4th Circuit ruled last year. If Democrats in Congress don’t have standing to sue over alleged violations of the Emoluments Clause, then who does?

Nobody, says the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a unanimous decision, because this is an institutional dispute rather than an individual one. The court also strongly hints in its opinion in Blumenthal et al v Trump that it’s a political issue for the legislative and executive branches to hash out between themselves:

Basically, courts seem to be saying that the Emoluments Clause is not grounds for a civil lawsuit.

[Cyber Liberty]

Yep, that whole tax returns shtick is a fishing expedition to find something obscure or complicated that can be twisted into campaign  ad material, lawsuits, or shampeachment articles.

More about this:

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/02/07/appeals-court-dems-no-standing-sue-trump-emoluments-clause/

Basically, courts seem to be saying that the Emoluments Clause is not grounds for a civil lawsuit.

The courts said a group of individual Congressrats, no matter how large, don't have standing because that belongs to Congress as a whole.  And if that happens, it's "maybe."