Lawsuit Over Trump’s Ties to His Businesses Is Allowed to Advance

WASHINGTON — A lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump of violating the Constitution by refusing to divorce himself from his businesses cleared a critical hurdle Wednesday when a federal judge in Maryland refused the Justice Department’s plea to dismiss it.

In a 47-page order, Judge Peter J. Messitte rejected the federal government’s claims that the plaintiffs had not shown that they had suffered injuries that a court could address.

The suit, filed by Washington, D.C., and the state of Maryland, accuses Trump of violating constitutional anti-corruption clauses intended to limit his receipt of government-bestowed benefits, or emoluments. The local jurisdictions claim that in hopes of currying presidential favor, government officials are patronizing Trump-owned properties instead of hotels or convention centers that the District of Columbia or Maryland own or have some financial interest in.

Although the case could still be thrown out on other grounds, the judge’s ruling adds to the president’s growing legal troubles.

Besides the continuing criminal inquiry into Russia’s influence over the presidential election, an actress in pornographic films, a former Playboy model and a onetime contestant on “The Apprentice” have filed civil lawsuits over their alleged relationships with Trump before he became president.

The emoluments case raises basic questions that have never been litigated. Even the specific definition of an emolument is unclear. During a January court hearing, Messitte seemed to acknowledge that the case would ultimately be decided by a higher court than his.

Although the president’s critics are hoping that the judge will allow the plaintiffs to scrutinize the Trump Organization’s financial records, perhaps even including the president’s tax returns, it was not clear from Wednesday’s opinion whether the judge would permit such discovery. The next stage of the case is expected to involve arguments about what constitutes an emolument.

Nonetheless, for the plaintiffs, the ruling that they have legal standing to challenge the president’s actions is an important first step in their quest to show that Trump crossed a constitutional line.

“We look forward now to proceeding to address the constitutional issues and demonstrate that the emoluments clauses forbid the things of value that are flowing into the president’s pockets from governments foreign and domestic,” said Norman L. Eisen, the chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who is serving as a co-counsel in the case.

The judge limited the scope of the suit to the Trump International Hotel, down the street from the White House, and businesses related to it that are owned by the Trump Organization. The president’s other business interests — such as the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida — are not at issue, he found, because they have no clear effect on the plaintiffs.

Messitte rejected the Justice Department’s argument that it is up to Congress, not a court, to decide whether the president has violated the emoluments clauses. He noted that the domestic emoluments clause, which restricts economic benefits to the president from government entities in the United States, makes no mention of Congress. “Congress has nary a say about it,” he wrote.

While the constitution does state that Congress can allow the president to accept gifts from foreign governments, he wrote, that does not rule out a lawsuit claiming violations. “If that were so, the Supreme Court would not have decided other cases involving constitutional provisions containing similar consent-of-Congress provisions,” he wrote.

His opinion on that question contradicted that of a federal judge in Manhattan, who last year threw out a lawsuit in which different plaintiffs claimed similar violations. During oral arguments, Messitte was dismissive of that judge’s opinion, saying it seemed to lack rigorous analysis. He noted in his opinion that states are not ordinary litigants but have enhanced standing in cases involving the federal government. The plaintiffs in the New York case were nongovernmental.

Lawyers for the Justice Department argued that there was no proof that Washington or Maryland properties were losing customers to Trump’s properties. Even if they are, they contended, that does not amount to a constitutional violation by the president.

But Messitte found that the local governments “have alleged sufficient facts to show that the president’s ownership in the hotel has had and almost certainly will continue to have an unlawful effect on competition.”

He noted that some foreign government officials had stated publicly that they chose to patronize the Trump International Hotel because the president’s family owns it, and that some foreign governments had canceled reservations at other hotels and transferred their business to the president’s.

He also noted that the governor of Maine, Paul LePage, stayed at the Trump International Hotel last year shortly before he appeared at a news conference at which Trump signed an executive order that could affect a park and national monument in his state. That suggests that officials from Maryland and Washington might feel “obliged, i.e., coerced, to patronize the hotel in order to help them obtain federal favors,” the judge wrote.