The Strongest Evidence Yet Donald Trump Is Violating Constitutional Anti-Corruption Clauses

[JonLP24]

New documents show the National Security Council spent taxpayer money at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.



Since Donald Trump took office in January, his presidency has been dogged by concerns about how he may be profiting off the executive office. Now, thanks to receipts obtained by the transparency group Property of the People via the Freedom of Information Act, there’s evidence that the White House’s National Security Council paid more than $1,000 for a two-night stay at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 3 and 4 of this year. Trump owns the resort, and the profits are stored in a trust managed by Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen H. Weisselberg that the president can pull funds from at any time. As a consequence, these receipts may be evidence of a violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the president from receiving any compensation from federal, state, or local governments beyond the salary he earns as chief executive.

The Mar-a-Lago documents, which Property of the People obtained through the Coast Guard (a division of the Department of Homeland Security), show the National Security Council paid full price—the “rack rate”—for the rooms using a government travel charge card. The room cost $546 a night, according to the receipt. The Trump administration has at times referred to the Mar-a-Lago estate as the “Winter White House” or the “Southern White House.”

On Saturday, March 4, the second of the two days in question, President Trump was seen mingling at a lavish charity ball hosted by the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at Mar-a-Lago, where he reportedly had dinner earlier that evening with then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, John Kelly, former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, and White House counsel Don McGahn. This was Trump’s third visit to his Palm Beach golf estate since his inauguration in January and two days after Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into the president’s ties with Russia. Saturday, March 4, was also a prolific day for President Trump on Twitter; he found the time to lodge an unfounded claim that President Obama had wiretapped Trump’s office at the White House and take a jab at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “bad (pathetic) ratings” on the television show Trump used to host, Celebrity Apprentice.

The documents obtained by Property of the People also show that a government travel charge card was used to pay a March hotel bill at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas at a cost of $186. Trump himself owns 50 percent of the property. The documents also detail three February charges totaling $62, also paid by government card, at the restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/09/documents_show_national_security_council_spent_taxpayer_money_at_trump_s.html

[JonLP24]

1. Just one kick for visibility

Feel this is a very important story regarding recent info. I would have posted in LBN but feel the headline would have had my thread locked despite news in the article.

[Major Nikon]

2. Grifters gonna grift

[Initech]

3. It doesn't matter. The GOP is the guy who gets away with everything.

We're the hard working siblings who had to work up from the ground with nothing. They're the rich kids who get a Corvette just because daddy said so.

[kentuck]

4. Seems rather trivial knowing that....

he has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars with money laundering and racketeering.

[JonLP24]

5. At least this applies to the Constitution

anything he did before office doesn't really apply or at-least I don't think so.

[clu]

6. MAGA

[True_Blue]

7. K&R