By Glynn Wilson –

In a late breaking news development on Friday afternoon that comes as bad news for President Donald J. Trump on the eve of the midterm elections next Tuesday, a federal judge announced his decision to deny Trump’s request to stay a lawsuit claiming he is in violation of the United States Constitution by doing business with foreign governments at his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. not far from the White House.

The 31 page decision by U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Maryland, clears the legal path for attorneys general in Maryland and D.C. to move forward in the discovery process to seek information about customers at the hotel, where domestic and foreign dignitaries regularly try to curry favor with the president by conducting private business with Trump’s enterprises.

Judge Messitte rejected Trump’s legal argument that this case should be halted so it could be appealed before going forward, and questioned harshly the president’s position that his business does not improperly accept gifts or payments — emoluments as defined by the U..S. Constitution. And he denied the Trump-Jeff Sessions Justice Department’s request to pause the case to allow a higher court to intervene.

Trump’s government legal team had argued that payments to his private businesses from foreign governments could not qualify as “emoluments.” The judge disagreed strongly, saying “the court finds this a dubious proposition.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh released a statement in reaction to the ruling Friday afternoon, saying the decision affirms once again that Maryland and the District of Columbia have standing to sue.

“We agree with the court that the President’s motion was nothing more than an attempt to delay the ultimate resolution of our lawsuit, a tactic that the court said ‘as a matter of justice, cannot be countenanced,’” Frosh said.

“The President’s latest attempt to block our emoluments lawsuit has failed once again,” Frosh said. “We are gratified that the court has denied the President’s efforts to keep our case from proceeding to discovery.”

Judge Messitte ordered the plaintiffs to submit a schedule for discovery of evidence within 20 days, having previously limited the process to information related to Trump’s D.C. hotel, which the lawsuit claims is involved in unfair competition to other hotels in the D.C. and Maryland areas around the nation’s capital.

“We will soon provide the court a new schedule to begin the process of getting information about how President Trump is profiting from the presidency,” Racine said in a statement.

Trump’s team argued that the lawsuit should ultimately be dismissed because it was a burden for the president, distracting from his duties.

“Their ultimate argument was that the president of the United States is too busy” to be sued, Frosh said. He said the Justice Department was “attempting to delay discovery in our case.”

Judge Messitte had rejected that argument before. In this opinion he noted, “wryly,” according to the Washington Post coverage of the case, that — instead of avoiding legal battles — Trump seems to seek them out while in the White House.

Judge Messitte cited Trump’s threats to sue author Michael Wolff and former adviser Stephen K. Bannon, and Trump’s taunting of former CIA director William Brennan. After Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance, Trump wrote on Twitter: “I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country’s history, brings a lawsuit.”

“It bears noting that the President himself seems to have had little reluctance to pursue personal litigation despite the supposed distractions it imposes on his office,” Messitte wrote.

Trump has retained ownership of his company and properties, unlike every other president to date, but claims he has distanced himself from day-to-day operation and control. Yet the Trump Organization has held several large events paid for by foreign governments at the D.C. hotel and reported about $150,000 in what it called “foreign profits” last year, according to the Post.

“The President’s ownership interest in the Trump International Hotel and his apparent receipt of benefits from at least some foreign and state governments, as well as from the Federal Government itself, suggest that he has received ‘emoluments’ in violation of the Constitution,” the judge concluded in his opinion.

Messitte had ruled in an earlier opinion that the definition of the word emoluments, in the context of the late 1700s, was broad enough to include sales of goods or services. By the judge’s logic, that definition meant that Trump could be taking emoluments merely by renting ballrooms to foreign-government customers, according to the Post.

Trump had objected, saying that the word should be defined more narrowly, to mean only payments made to Trump specifically to influence his behavior as president.

“By every reasonable metric, [Trump’s definition] appears to describe what is tantamount to a bribe,” the judge wrote in the most recent ruling. He called that interpretation “exceedingly strained.”

The lawsuit is after details about spending at the hotel by foreign governments, state governments and the U.S. federal government. The attorneys general are looking at the finances of Trump’s company to see how money flows through individual Trump businesses to the president himself. They are also seeking to discover information from Trump in “his communications with foreign, state and domestic government officials.”

They also seek information about Trump’s lease with the federal government. The hotel is a federally owned historic building, the old post office just a couple of blocks from the White House, which Trump’s company leased before he ran for public office.

Trump’s attorneys have asked for their own discovery seeking details about how the Maryland or D.C. governments have been harmed financially by foreign-government customers using Trump’s hotel instead of other accommodations in the same area.

See our previous coverage of this groundbreaking case here.

Federal Judge Rules Against Trump in Emoluments Clause Case

Federal Lawsuit Alleges Trump Violates Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses

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