The Solid Facts That Settle All Arguments About Trump
Regardless of what you think of President Donald Trump - whether he’s the savior of America or an agent of the devil himself; there are some overriding, indisputable facts that make all arguments about him irrelevant. The clear truths that all of us should have held to in 2016 are found in the US Constitution. Three specific Constitutional provisions unequivocally disqualify Donald Trump from being president. Full stop. No questions.
Before I get into those provisions, let me bring up a more familiar Constitutional provision:
Article 2, Section 1
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
We all accept that if for example AOC had said she wanted to run for president in 2020, we’d all say “Sorry, you’re only 30 years old. No can do”. Likewise if Senator Mazie Hirono or Rep Pramila Jayapal had wanted to run, the consensus would be that since they were not born in the US, then they can’t be president. I realize that there are some divergent interpretations on what “natural born citizen” means, but for purposes of this writing, I’m sticking with the traditional viewpoint of being born on US soil. Notice that the Constitution doesn’t provide for what should happen to someone who defies these requirements. I think it’s safe to say that the writers intended that the country simply would not allow it to happen.
Next, we have the specific provisions that back up my bold claim that Donald Trump is ineligible to be president.
The Domestic Emoluments Clause
Still in Article 2, Section 1, we have this:
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
That word emolument isn’t one that we hear in our everyday conversations, but its definition speaks to the wisdom of the framers:
Profit, salary, or fees from office or employment; compensation for services. Tips are an emolument in addition to wages. Older translations include “advantage”.
In other words, an emolument is simply anything of value.
The provision says that the president shall (not may) receive compensation. It’s not optional. One reason for this is to remove the temptation to decline his salary for false pretenses of charity, and then turn around and take illegal payments from other sources outside of public accountability. Another reason that the framers may not have anticipated is that the president has to pay taxes on his regular paycheck, just like the rest of us. Payments from corrupt sources are intended to be hidden, so that would add tax fraud to the crime. So, no he’s not being charitable by declining to take a regular salary. He’s cheating.
Next, notice that this is a two-in-one provision in that the president cannot receive anything of value beyond his salary from “the United States” (the Federal government), “or any of them”, with “them” being the individual states.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause
In Article 1, Section 9, we have the prohibition of any emoluments from foreign governments, which is more strict than the domestic clause:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Notice that the provision extends to anyone holding an office. It also calls out emoluments of any kind. That would include political favors, trademarks, or business contracts.
So we clearly see that the same Constitution that prohibits some politicians from running for president based on age or country of birth also says that a president cannot receive any form of payment from the Federal government, state governments, or foreign governments. We all know from eighth grade civics class why this is wrong.
Is Trump Really Violating These Provisions?
I don’t know how to answer that without using over-the-top hyperbole. I could say the answer is “A thousand times yes”; but to be more accurate, it would be more like “3700 times yes”.
The truly horrible part of all this is that it was public knowledge during the campaign that he had massive conflicts of interest that would be more than problematic if he were elected. A glaring example from 2015 was a Federal financial crimes fine of $10 million against one of his casinos for money laundering. This was right in front of our noses through the entire campaign, but, you know…her emails.
Let’s look now at how he has violated all three Constitutional provisions, and furthermore, has carried out the worst nightmares that the Founders feared.
On May 13, 2018, President Trump sent this Tweet:
Wait, what? Too many jobs in China lost? The backstory is that the telecom company ZTE was caught illegally shipping goods that originated in US to Iran and North Korea. The Commerce department then slapped sanctions on them. So after candidate Trump repeatedly eviscerated China over how they have cost American jobs, why the sudden concern over jobs in China? It turns out that three days before the ZTE announcement, China provided $500 million to fund a Trump-themed project in Indonesia. This is a red-handed, in-your-face example of quid-pro-quo that would have sunk any other president in a week.
Industrial and Commerce Bank of China
One of the largest state-owned Chinese banks has an office in Trump Tower. Yes, right now. Today.
Trump has personally taken in at least $5.4 million from that lease since becoming president. If you’re up for a road trip, you can easily find it at 725 5th Ave, Suite 20:
Next we have this December 1, 2015 interview with Breitbart, where Trump said this:
“I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul. It’s a tremendously successful job…It’s called Trump Towers — two towers, instead of one, not the usual one — it’s two. And I’ve gotten to know Turkey very well.”
“They’re amazing people, they’re incredible people. They have a strong leader.”
So he comes into office still owning a major real estate property in a country that has a semi-authoritarian leader. Then at the end of 2019, Trump abruptly announced that the US was pulling troops out of Northern Syria, letting Turkey take the lead in the region, which resulted in military offenses against our longtime allies, the Kurds. This move prompted Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to resign in protest and write a scathing letter critical of his Commander in Chief.
This next example has to do with deals that Trump made with Saudis before he was president. At a rally in 2015, candidate Trump told the audience, “Saudi Arabia…they buy apartments from me, they spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much”.
As far as we know, he doesn’t have current deals with Saudis. However, there is a solid argument that his presidential judgment has been affected by his past deals with them. Here’s why:
Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi born journalist with an American green card who was critical of the Saudi regime. Green card holders like Khashoggi pay taxes, can serve in the military, and have earned almost all of the same rights as citizens. On October 2, 2018, he was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and brutally tortured and murdered. US intelligence reports confirmed with high confidence that the Saudi government, and more specifically Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s killing. In journalist circles, Mohammad bin Salman is frequently referred to as “MBS”, and after the killing, it became common to refer to him as “Mister Bone Saw”, for the way that Khashoggi’s killing was carried out.
As this was coming out, US Senator Lindsay Graham commented that if the Saudi government was behind the killing, there will be hell to pay.
There was not hell to pay from President Trump. Again, he criticized US intelligence reports at every turn, and steadfastly refused to condemn or punish the regime. In fact, in the months after the killing, Trump went around Congress to provide nuclear technology to the Saudis, asking for nothing in return from them.
Also, during a recorded interview with Bob Woodward for his book, “Rage”, Trump straight-up said that he used his power to protect MBS after the killing:
“I saved his ass. I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop”.
Aside from the national security threats by the president’s decisions based on his own interests, there are thousands of other instances that are just as illegal. We have two very good watchdog organizations that have attempted to track the conflicts of interests and constitutional violations by Trump.
The first resource is from the stellar non-profit journalism group ProPublica. They have published the interactive Paying the President tracker that catalogs the crimes due to money paid to Trump businesses. It’s color coded by Federal governments, State governments, and campaign organizations like the RNC. However, it is incomplete because the Administration is hiding many public disclosures.
Here are just a few documented examples:
None of this includes the payments made to Trump properties for the Secret Service protection during the hundreds of trips to his properties that he has made since taking office. Also breaking with tradition is the fact that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is blocking the Secret Service from disclosing how much it spends at Trump’s businesses until after the election.
Another great resource for tracking the president’s crimes and conflicts of interest is the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Their report is updated frequently and includes a breakdown of many of the entities that are shoveling money into Trump’s pockets, which includes a staggering number of 145 foreign officials who have frequented his properties. Think about that. Just one of these violations would be impeachable.
The CREW article is very long, but is worth reading every word. One example that stands out is when T-Mobile filed for approval to merge with Sprint, which needed approval from the administration. The day after the announcement, T-Mobile executives flooded the Washington DC Trump hotel, spending over $100,000 there. The merger was eventually approved.
The FBI Headquarters Building
In mid-July 2020, a second Coronavirus stimulus bill was released, which included $1.75 billion to renovate the existing FBI headquarters in DC. Why is this relevant? The answer starts in 2012 when the FBI and Congress agreed to a project to move the FBI HQ to the DC suburbs due to space restrictions, the age of the existing building, and the cost savings of real estate outside the downtown DC area. The cost of the project was expected to be $451 million.
When Trump took office in 2017, cancelling that project became an obsession. It didn’t take long to figure out why. The existing FBI building is right across the street from his hotel, and it was widely expected that the lot which has the existing FBI building would become another hotel. So to avoid competition with his hotel, he spent even more of your tax dollars.
Bribery In The Constitution
This next example is called out in Article 2, Section 4:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors”.
Here we have one of the most obvious instances of bribery that the president has committed. In December 2018, Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for a campaign finance violation in which he acted as an intermediary to funnel $130,000 from Trump to porn actress Stormy Daniels. This was in return for her to keep quiet just before the election about a past affair. To hide the flow of money, Cohen paid the money up front to Daniels, and then Trump reimbursed him through a series of $35,000 checks for “consulting services”. Under oath, Cohen produced copies of two of those checks written while Trump was serving as president:
This is clearly a Federal crime that should have resulted in an immediate impeachment and indictment against the president.
What I have outlined here is just a tiny sample of the low-hanging fruit of Trump’s many crimes. Consider that Bill Clinton had an illicit affair with a subordinate, then broke the law by lying under oath about it. As wrong as that was, nobody beyond his family and those directly connected were harmed. No policy decisions were made from the incident. Still he was impeached, and over 100 newspapers (including the San Francisco Chronicle) called for him to resign simply because we expected a high moral standard from our president.
History will positively remember the Trump administration as the most criminal and unethical in American history, and will recoil in disgust at what he was allowed to get away with. He is clearly Constitutionally disqualified from the office that he holds.
