Self-Dealing President Doesn’t Even Pretend to Be Constrained by the Law; G-7 to Be Held at Trump’s Doral Property
Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen
Apparently, President Donald Trump no longer sees fit even to pretend that he is constrained by the law or the Constitution.
It’s hard to imagine a more blatant violation of the Constitution’s anti-corruption (“emoluments”) provision than the president steering foreign governments to stay at his luxury resort property.
This is a president who believes the powers of the presidency are bestowed on him to advance his own personal interests – political and profit-seeking – rather than those of the American people.
This is the exact attitude that leads to foreign policy being outsourced to the president’s lawyer and his shady accomplices.
It is the exact attitude that leads to the president withholding military aid to Ukraine to pressure that country to intervene in our elections.
It is the exact attitude that has the president interfere with the location of the FBI headquarters because he fears competition for his Washington, D.C., hotel – a hotel operating in violation of the plain terms of his lease with the government.
It is an attitude that says, I’m above the law.
However, Trump is not above the law.
There is a constitutional remedy to a president who believes and carries out policy as if he is above the law and immune from constitutional restraint: impeachment and conviction.