Laurence Tribe: If Garland doesn't prosecute Trump, the rule of law is "out the window"

[Slammer]

45. emoluments

During the first two weeks of the Trump administration, he took a trip and stayed at one of his properties.

His Secret Service detail followed him, of course.

And Trump rented rooms at his resort to his Secret Service detail. And received a check from the government for it.

That's a direct violation of the Constitution. And if we had Senators in both parties who cared about the Constitution and the rule of law, Trump would have been up for impeachment immediately after taking office.

Even if Trump had rented the rooms at cost or at a loss, which he didn't, he'd still be in violation of the emoluments clause. A president can't sell things to the government. The government can't buy things from a president.

Trump can't even try to argue that this was some sort of an "incidental expense by the government which would have happened" anyway since Trump was the one who chose to stay at his own property then chose to charge the Secret Service for following him there.

It took two years for the Washington Post to confirm that the government cut a check to Trump. But it was obvious that Trump did it because that's what he'd been doing during the campaign after he was given Secret Service protection: treating their nightly hotel expenses like a government-funded machine which put money in his own pocket. (That was legal as a presidential candidate, though questionable ethically. Presidential candidates can take non-salary money from the government in business transactions.)

It was one of those open secrets in Washington that Trump continued doing selling hotel rooms to his Secret Service detail after he took office, the point in time when doing that became a violation of the Constitution.

Everyone knew it was happening repeatedly but no one wanted to admit it in public. And no one wanted to do anything about it. Not Republicans, not Democrats, and not potential whistleblowers in the Secret Service or various government accounting departments.

I screamed bloody murder about it from the first time it happened, not that it did any good....