Donald Trump ‘violated domestic emoluments clause’, says Barack Obama’s former ethics lawyer

Donald Trump’s golfing trips, his flights to his Mar-a-Lago estate on the private jet and dinners at the Trump International Hotel have not only raised eyebrows as to his work ethic but have also prompted a group of prominent lawyers to accuse him of violating the US Constitution.

Norm Eisen, former chief ethics counsel for Barack Obama, told The Independent that he is suing President Trump for allegedly violating the so-called “domestic emoluments clause”, which prohibits the President from receiving additional compensation besides his salary.

“At some point these millions of dollars that the United States are spending for Trump to advertise his properties – he’s so blatant about it, Chris – that runs afoul of that Constitutional provision, called the domestic emoluments clause,” he said in a longer interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Mr Trump said he had waived the salary of $400,000.

But Article II, Section I, Clause 7 of the US Constitution states: “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased 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.”

Each trip to Palm Beach, Florida, where the President has spent most weekends, is estimated to cost $3 million. Last weekend Fox News tweeted that Mr Trump was “spending the weekend working at the White House”, but he travelled to his golf resort in Virginia on Saturday and again on Sunday.

Secret service costs are also estimated to cost millions of dollars, for him and his family. His sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, have required security services as they travelled to Dubai and Vancouver, opening new Trump-branded businesses.

Mr Eisen added that Mr Trump has not even declared who was coming and going at Mar-a-Lago, what he terms the Winter White House, while Mr Obama did provide a visitor record. Democrats this month introduced the Make Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act (Mar-a-Lago Act) to demand visitor logs and reveals where else the President is conducting official business.

“His abuse of the Presidency at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to the American taxpayer to subsidise Donald Trump’s advertisements for his clubs is nothing like we’ve ever seen before in the Presidency and I think it’s part and parcel of the contempt for the law that has got him into all this Russia-gate trouble,” said Mr Eisen.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said it would be a "vast reach" to suggest that the President cut back on his Mar-a-Lago trips and that travelling and playing golf was "part of being the President".

Mr Eisen, along with a group of constitutional scholars and legal experts including former President George W Bush’s chief ethics counsel Richard Painter, has filed a lawsuit alleging that the President has conflicts of interest with his business empire. The lawsuit alleged that he has broken the “foreign emoluments clause” too, for instance, when he hosted foreign diplomats at his new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue which could arguably curry favour at the White House.

His conflicts of interest are difficult to vet, however, because he has still not released his tax returns, said Mr Eisen.

He is the first President to do so and despite a majority of Americans and 49 per cent of his own supporters wanting to see them, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll.

Following the scrapped healthcare bill and the stalled investigation surrounding links between his aides and Russian operatives. Mr Trump’s popularity ratings have fallen to a record low of 36 per cent, according to the latest Gallup poll. In a series of tweets, Mr Trump urged the public to focus on Hillary and Bill Clinton’s alleged deals and ties to Russia.

“It is a proven strategy to excite his now dwindling and dispirited base,” he told The Independent.

“Irrational hatred of the Clintons remains strong on the far right as is proven for example by the steady and ongoing number of judicial watch tweets and fundraising solicitations targeting them. Indeed, Hillary's re-emergence in public life is likely to add fuel to that lunatic fire. “