In victory for Trump, judge tosses suit on foreign payments

NEW YORK - A federal judge in New York on Thursday threw out a lawsuit that had accused President Donald Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution by accepting foreign payments through his hotels and other businesses, handing him a major victory on an issue that has dogged him since even before he took office in January.

Though other lawsuits remain pending that make similar claims, the ruling by U.S. District Judge George Daniels is the first to weigh the merits of the U.S. Constitution's anti-corruption provisions as they apply to Trump, a wealthy businessman who as president regularly visits his own hotels, resorts and golf clubs.

   
In a 29-page opinion granting the Trump administration's request to toss the suit, Daniels said the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to bring the suit. The plaintiffs included the nonprofit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a hotel owner, a hotel events booker and a restaurant trade group.

The lawsuit, filed after the Republican president took office in January, accused Trump of running afoul of the Constitution's "emoluments" clause by maintaining ownership of his business empire while in office.

The emoluments clause, designed to prevent corruption and foreign influence, bars U.S. officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval.

Trump has ceded day-to-day control of his businesses to his sons. Critics have said that is not a sufficient safeguard.

The plaintiffs said they are legally injured when foreign governments try to "curry favor" with Trump by paying to use his businesses, such as the Trump International Hotel in Washington or a high-end restaurant at a Trump hotel in New York City. The plaintiffs said this leads them to have lost patronage, wages and commissions.

U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam said the Trump administration "appreciates the court's ruling."

Daniels, appointed to the bench by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, said in his decision that the plaintiffs' claims were speculative. Daniels said Trump had amassed wealth and fame even before taking office and was competing in the hospitality industry.

"It is only natural that interest in his properties has generally increased since he became president," the judge wrote.

The judge also said that if Congress wanted to do something about the president's actions, it could. "Congress is not a potted plant," Daniels said. "It is a co-equal branch of the federal government with the power to act."

CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said that his legal team is weighing options on how to proceed. "While today's ruling is a setback, we will not walk away from this serious and ongoing constitutional violation," Bookbinder added.

Some legal experts had raised concerns even before his inauguration on Jan. 20 that Trump would violate the emoluments clause as president. (Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Trump faces new lawsuit over foreign payments to Trump hotels

The attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia plan to file a lawsuit on Monday alleging that foreign payments to President Donald Trump's businesses violate the U.S. constitution, according to a source familiar with the situation.


Trump already faces a similar lawsuit that was brought in January by plaintiffs including a ethics non-profit group.

 However, the case from two Democratic attorneys general could stand a better chance in court as the first government action over allegations that Trump, a Republican, violated the constitution's so-called emoluments clause.

Democrat AGs have taken a lead role in litigating against Trump's policies, successfully blocking executive orders restricting travel from some Muslim-majority countries. They are also resisting efforts to roll back environmental regulations and insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

A spokesman for Maryland's attorney general declined to comment on the latest emoluments case. DC attorney general Karl Racine and a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice could not immediately be reached.

In the case filed in January in Manhattan federal court, an ethics non-profit, restaurant group and hotel events booker allege Trump violates the Constitution's "emoluments" clause, which bars him from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, by maintaining ownership over his business empire despite ceding day-to-day control to his sons.

The Justice Department on Friday argued that those plaintiffs lack the legal standing to sue because they cannot allege enough specific harm caused by Trump's businesses. The government also said Trump hotel revenue does not fit the definition of an improper payment under the constitution.

AG Racine told Reuters in a March interview that the District of Columbia has suffered particular harm because it subsidized the construction of hotels that are now impacted by foreign payments to Trump properties.

That puts the district in a "unique position" to file legal claims over the emoluments clause, Racine said.

The Washington Post earlier reported the AG lawsuit.

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Ethics lawyers to sue Trump over foreign payments

A group including former White House ethics attorneys will file a lawsuit on Monday accusing President Donald Trump of allowing his businesses to accept payments from foreign governments, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit, brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, will allege that the Constitution's emoluments clause forbids payments to Trump's businesses. It will seek a court order forbidding Trump from accepting such payments, said Deepak Gupta, one of the lawyers working on the case.

Trump does business with countries like China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, the group noted in a statement.

"When Trump the president sits down to negotiate trade deals with these countries, the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman," it said.

A Trump representative referred questions to a law firm representing the president on ethics matters.

"We do not comment on our clients or the work we do for them," said the representative of the firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius.

The case is part of a wave of litigation expected to be filed against Trump by liberal advocacy groups. It will be filed in a Manhattan federal court, Gupta said, and attorneys for the plaintiffs will include Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in Republican President George W. Bush's White House.

The impending lawsuit was earlier reported by the New York Times.

Trump's son Eric Trump, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, told the Times on Sunday that the company had taken more steps than required by law to avoid any possible legal exposure, such as agreeing to donate any profits collected at Trump-owned hotels that come from foreign government guests to the U.S. Treasury.

"This is purely harassment for political gain," Trump told the newspaper. (Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Federal agents raid suspected 'maternity hotels' in California

LOS ANGELES - Federal agents raided about 20 Southern California locations on Tuesday suspected of involvement in "maternity tourism" schemes providing travel, lodging and medical care to pregnant foreign women seeking to give birth in the United States, immigration officials said.

Authorities say the so-called maternity hotels targeted in the sweep catered largely to wealthy women from China who paid $15,000 to $80,000, depending on services offered, in hopes of obtaining U.S. citizenship for their children.

The locations searched included three apartment complexes - one each in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties - suspected of housing foreign clients, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE.

No criminal arrests were anticipated from Tuesday's raids, which were carried out by federal agents and local law enforcement, said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Investigations office in Los Angeles.

The sweep was believed to mark the first such enforcement action against a cottage industry that has gained a growing foothold in the United States in recent years while operating largely out of sight of federal authorities, he said.

The U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of parentage, and immigration experts say there is nothing inherently illegal about women coming from abroad to give birth in the United States.

But operators of the maternity hotels are suspected of obtaining non-immigrant U.S. visitor visas under false pretenses, as well as engaging in tax fraud, money laundering and other offenses, Arnold said.

Any women encountered in the raids were to be interviewed, and those identified as potential material witnesses instructed where and when to report for further questioning, ICE said.

Businesses engaged in maternity tourism, also known as "birth tourism," are believed to have been operating for several years, relying on websites, newspaper advertising and social media to promote their services, immigration officials said.

As part of the package, clients were promised they would receive Social Security numbers and U.S. passports for their infants, ICE said, documentation the mothers would take with them when they returned to their home countries.

Once the children reach adulthood, they can seek U.S. visas for relatives living abroad.

More expensive packages include recreational activities, such as visits to Disneyland and shopping malls, ICE said.

Clients apparently pay cash for prenatal medical treatment and delivery of their babies. At least some have fraudulently benefited from sharply discounted hospital rates normally reserved for indigent or uninsured patients, according to court documents.

More than 400 children linked to operators in Irvine were born at one of the Orange County hospitals they used since January 2013, authorities said. Immigration officials say they believe thousands of Chinese women have been traveling to the United States using temporary visitor visas for the sole purpose of giving birth.

They typically arrive through tourist destinations such as Hawaii or Las Vegas to avoid heightened scrutiny they might otherwise encounter at Los Angeles International Airport, officials said.

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US Supreme Court to rule on birth control

WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court will rule Monday on whether an employer can cite religious beliefs as a reason to limit employees' access to birth control.

Saving the most sensitive issue for its last day of the current term, ahead of a three-month recess, the Supreme Court is also expected to be the site of protests from both sides of the issue as the hearing gets underway.

The decision, hotly awaited since arguments on March 25, is the first related to President Barack Obama's signature health care reform since the court upheld the law two years ago.

The controversy relates to four of the 20 contraception methods that the law requires be 100 percent reimbursed by insurance: two types of morning-after pills and two types of intrauterine devices, or IUDs.

The plaintiffs are companies refusing to buy insurance for their employees that covers these types of birth control, saying they violate their religious convictions against abortion.

Craft store chain Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Pennsylvania cabinetmaker, risk a fine if the top court rules against them for refusing to conform to the contraception requirements under the Affordable Care Act, dubbed "Obamacare."

Hobby Lobby's billionaire chief executive David Green says his company follows "biblical principles" that bar him from complying. Conestoga's owners say they run the company based on Mennonite Christian values.

But the Obama administration, which exempted traditional religious congregations from the rule, says a for-profit company such as Hobby Lobby does not enjoy the same protections afforded to individuals under the US Constitution.

Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby closes its stores Sunday for the Sabbath -- rare among US businesses -- and credits "God's grace and provision" on its website for its economic success.

The company does not argue against other birth control methods covered under the federal law, but says the four types at issue violate the religious principles it tries to apply on a daily basis.

A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the company, finding that the legal obligation infringed on religious freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

"Everybody agrees that churches and Catholic charities have the right" to cite the First Amendment, said constitutional lawyer Noel Francisco.

So "why one category and not the others?" he asked.

But Georgia University law professor Eric Segall argued that "if we live in a country where people can not follow the law because their conscience is offended, we're going to have a whole lot of chaos."

Elizabeth Wydra, lawyer at the Constitutional Accountability Center, said she has "no doubt that the Green family as individuals might have objections."

However, "the law doesn't place any burdens on individuals, it places obligations on the corporate entities, they must provide the whole package of contraception," she added.

During the March hearing, the three progressive female justices of the Supreme Court seemed largely on the side of the Obama administration.

It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will have convinced at least two other judges to get a majority on the nine-person bench.

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Google ordered to remove anti-Islamic film from YouTube

A US appeals court on Wednesday ordered Google Inc to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islamic film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google's assertion that the removal of the film "Innocence of Muslims" amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the US Constitution.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, had objected to the film after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie, which had been partially dubbed and in which she appeared to be asking: "Is your Mohammed a child molester?"

In a statement, Google said: "We strongly disagree with this ruling and will fight it."

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said she is delighted with the decision.

"Ordering YouTube and Google to take down the film was the right thing to do," Armenta said in an email. "The propaganda film differs so radically from anything that Ms. Garcia could have imagined when the director told her that she was being cast in the innocent adventure film."

The controversial film, billed as a film trailer, depicted the Prophet Mohammed as a fool and a sexual deviant. It sparked a torrent of anti-American unrest among Muslims in Egypt, Libya and other countries in 2012.

That outbreak coincided with an attack on US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya. US and other foreign embassies were also stormed in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is considered blasphemous.

Google had refused to remove the film from YouTube, despite pressure from the White House and others, though it blocked the trailer in Egypt, Libya and certain other countries.

In court filings, Google argued that Garcia appeared in the film for five seconds, and that while she might have legal claims against the director, she should not win a copyright lawsuit against Google.

The film has now become an important part of public debate, Google argued, and should not be taken down.

"Our laws permit even the vilest criticisms of governments, political leaders, and religious figures as legitimate exercises in free speech," the company wrote.

But Garcia argued that her performance within the film was independently copyrightable and that she retained an interest in that copyright.

A lower court had refused her request that Google remove the film from YouTube. In Wednesday's decision, however, 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said Garcia was likely to prevail on her copyright claim, and having already faced "serious threats against her life," faced irreparable harm absent an injunction.

He called it a rare and troubling case, given how Garcia had been duped. "It's disappointing, though perhaps not surprising, that Garcia needed to sue in order to protect herself and her rights," he wrote.

The case is Garcia vs. Google Inc et al., 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-57302.

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