Trump, The GSA, And That Troublesome Emoluments Claus

Hey, remember The Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC?

Remember all the talk about how Trump's ownership of the Hotel caused a conflict with this section of the Constitution:

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.

The lease to the Hotel states:

No member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom; provided, however, that this provision shall not be construed as extending to any Person who may be a shareholder or other beneficial owner of any publicly held corporation or other entity, if this Lease is for the general benefit of such corporation or other entity.

And yet Donald Trump, the principal owner of the Hotel, got to keep it because the GSA originally said his ownership did not violate that part of the lease.

Well, the Inspector General's office of the GSA finds that they were wrong.

From that report's introduction:

On July 28, 2017, the Office of Inspector General of the General Services Administration (GSA OIG) opened this evaluation of GSA’s management and administration of GSA’s ground lease of the Old Post Office Building (OPO). We initiated this evaluation based on numerous complaints from Members of Congress and the public about GSA’s management of the lease. The complaints generally raised two issues regarding the lease: (1) does the Foreign Emoluments Clause or the Presidential Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution bar President Donald J. Trump ’s business interest in the Trump Old Post Office LLC (Tenant) and (2) does the President’s business interest in Tenant violate Section 37.19 of the lease.

This report focuses on GSA’s decision -making process for determining whether the President’s election caused Tenant to be in breach of the lease upon the President’ s inauguration. We did not seek to determine whether the Preside nt’s interest in the hotel violates either the Emoluments Clause s or Section 37.19 of the lease, or whether any violation caused a breach of the terms and conditions of the lease. Rather, we sought to determine whether there were any improprieties in GSA’s decision -making process regarding these issues.

We found that GSA recognized that the President’s business interest in the OPO lease raised issues under the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses that might cause a breach of the lease; however, GSA decided not to address those issues in connection with the management of the lease. We also found that the decision to exclude the emoluments issues from GSA’s consideration of the lease was improper because GSA, like all government agencies, has an obligation to uphold and enforce the Constitution; and because the lease, itself, requires that consideration. In addition, we found that GSA’s unwillingness to address the constitutional issues affected its analysis of Section 37.19 of the lease that led to GSA’s conclusion that Tenant’s business structure satisfied the terms and conditions of the lease. As a result, GSA foreclosed an early resolution of these issues, including a possible solution satisfactory to all parties; and the uncertainty over the lease remains unresolved.

They had an obligation to uphold the Constitution and they didn't.

Sadly typical in Trump's America.