There's Nothing Phony About The Emoluments Clause

President Trump, smarting over having to reverse course on hosting next year's G-7 Summit at Doral, railed against the "this phony emoluments clause."


The Emoluments Clause is anything but phony. Consider how the conservative Heritage Foundation describes its origins:


Similarly, the Framers intended the Emoluments Clause to protect the republican character of American political institutions. "One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption." The Federalist No. 22 (Alexander Hamilton). The delegates at the Constitutional Convention specifically designed the clause as an antidote to potentially corrupting foreign practices of a kind that the Framers had observed during the period of the Confederation. Louis XVI had the custom of presenting expensive gifts to departing ministers who had signed treaties with France, including American diplomats. In 1780, the King gave Arthur Lee a portrait of the King set in diamonds above a gold snuff box; and in 1785, he gave Benjamin Franklin a similar miniature portrait, also set in diamonds. Likewise, the King of Spain presented John Jay (during negotiations with Spain) with the gift of a horse. All these gifts were reported to Congress, which in each case accorded permission to the recipients to accept them. Wary, however, of the possibility that such gestures might unduly influence American officials in their dealings with foreign states, the Framers institutionalized the practice of requiring the consent of Congress before one could accept "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from...[a] foreign State."


Trump has foreign corruption from an inlet to a vast ocean. An ocean which has swept the Heritage Foundation. One would think a truly conservative organization would condemn Trump for expecting tributes from foreign governments and accepting the same in return. But these days the Heritage Foundation wants to help Trump drain the swamp. Instead they have become a part of it.


So of course Trump calls the emoluments clause phony. How else would one expect a man who brags that the Constitution says he can do whatever he wants as President to behave? The question is how American voters will behave in a year from now.