Arguments begin in emoluments suit against Trump

Arguments begin in emoluments suit against Trump

 The Justice Department, which is defending Trump, called the suit politically motivated and said the Democratic attorneys general wanted to conduct a “fishing expedition” in the private files of the president’s business. The department’s lawyers also argued that the District and Maryland lacked standing to sue Trump in the first place because they wouldn’t suffer any specific injury.
..  He called the Trump International Hotel in the District — his own jurisdiction — a “den of iniquity” because, he alleged, it was seen as a place where money could buy influence.
.. In his questioning of Shumate, Messitte challenged the Justice Department’s argument that it was only speculation that Trump’s business had drawn clients away from others. He cited two embassy parties mentioned in a Washington Post story: Bahrain and Kuwait held expensive embassy parties at Trump’s D.C. hotel after the election.
.. “You have diplomats from certain Arab countries that are declaring that they are taking their business [to Trump’s hotels] in order to curry favor with the president,” Messitte said. “Do you need a number on that” loss of business to pursue the case further?
.. And he repeatedly questioned Shumate on the standing question, asking: If Maryland and the District can’t sue, then who can?

“Does anybody ever have standing, based on your argument?” Messitte said.

.. The plaintiffs also argued that competing hotels in Maryland and the District have been harmed by Trump’s D.C. hotel and that the U.S. General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, wrongly allowed Trump’s company to continue to lease the Old Post Office building (where the hotel operates), even though a clause in the contract said no elected official could remain on the lease.