[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Con. Res. 8 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. CON. RES. 8

 Clarifying any potential misunderstanding as to whether actions taken 
 by President Donald J. Trump constitute a violation of the Emoluments 
 Clause, and calling on President Trump to divest his interest in, and 
           sever his relationship to, the Trump Organization.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 2, 2017

  Mr. Cardin (for himself, Mr. Leahy, Mrs. McCaskill, Ms. Warren, Mr. 
 Carper, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Reed, 
Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Brown, Mr. Casey, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. 
   Udall, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Franken, Mr. 
    Coons, Mr. Blumenthal, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Murphy, Ms. Hirono, Mr. 
   Heinrich, Mr. Markey, Mr. Booker, Mr. Peters, Mr. Van Hollen, Ms. 
 Harris, Ms. Cortez Masto, and Ms. Duckworth) submitted the following 
concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland 
                   Security and Governmental Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
 Clarifying any potential misunderstanding as to whether actions taken 
 by President Donald J. Trump constitute a violation of the Emoluments 
 Clause, and calling on President Trump to divest his interest in, and 
           sever his relationship to, the Trump Organization.

Whereas article I, section 9, clause 8 of the United States Constitution 
        (commonly known as the ``Emoluments Clause'') declares, ``No title of 
        Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding 
        any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of 
        the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any 
        kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.'';
Whereas, according to the remarks of Governor Edmund Randolph at the 1787 
        Constitutional Convention, the Emoluments Clause ``was thought proper, 
        in order to exclude corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any 
        one in office from receiving or holding any emoluments from foreign 
        states'';
Whereas the issue of foreign corruption greatly concerned the Founding Fathers 
        of the United States, such that Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 22 
        wrote, ``In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, 
        by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-
        eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, 
        which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may 
        appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common 
        stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. Hence it is that 
        history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency 
        of foreign corruption in republican governments.'';
Whereas the President of the United States is the head of the executive branch 
        of the Federal Government and is expected to have undivided loyalty to 
        the United States, and clearly occupies an ``office of profit or trust'' 
        within the meaning of article I, section 9, clause 8 of the 
        Constitution, according to the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department 
        of Justice;
Whereas the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice opined in 2009 
        that corporations owned or controlled by a foreign government are 
        presumptively foreign states under the Emoluments Clause;
Whereas President Donald J. Trump has a business network, the Trump 
        Organization, that has financial interests around the world and 
        negotiates and concludes transactions with foreign states and entities 
        that are extensions of foreign states;
Whereas the very nature of a ``blind trust'', as defined by former White House 
        Ethics Counsels Richard Painter and Norm Eisen in an opinion piece in 
        the Washington Post entitled, ``Trump's `blind trust' is neither blind 
        nor trustworthy'', dated November 15, 2016, and the Congressional 
        Research Service report ``The Use of Blind Trusts By Federal 
        Officials'', is such that the official will have no control over, will 
        receive no communications about, and will have no knowledge of the 
        identity of the specific assets held in the trust, and that the manager 
        of the trust is independent of the owner;
Whereas, on January 11, 2017, President-elect Donald J. Trump and his lawyers 
        held a press conference to announce that he would be placing his assets 
        in a trust and turning over management of the Trump Organization to his 
        two adult sons, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump, and executive Allen 
        Weisselberg; that there will be no communication with President Trump 
        and no new overseas business deals; that an ethics advisor will be 
        appointed to the management team to fully vet any new proposed domestic 
        deals; and that the Trump Organization will donate any profits from any 
        foreign governments that use Trump hotels to the Department of the 
        Treasury;
Whereas this arrangement is not sufficient because of its utter lack of 
        independent accountability and transparency, such that the director of 
        the Office of Government Ethics has stated that ``[t]he plan the 
        [President] has announced doesn't meet the standards that the best of 
        his nominees are meeting and that every president in the last four 
        decades have met'';
Whereas the director of the Office of Government Ethics has characterized the 
        promise to limit President Trump's direct communication about the Trump 
        Organization as ``wholly inadequate'' because President Trump would 
        still be well-aware of the specific assets held and could receive 
        communications about and take actions to affect the value of those 
        assets, especially when those running the business are his own children, 
        whom Trump will see often;
Whereas the promise that no new overseas business deals will be agreed to by the 
        Trump Organization fails to explain what constitutes a deal, and whether 
        expansions to existing properties, licensing or permitting fee 
        agreements, or loans from foreign banks like Deutsche Bank AG would 
        qualify as ``deals'';
Whereas the promise that the Trump Organization will donate profits from any 
        foreign governments that use Trump hotels does not include Trump golf 
        courses and other properties; does not explain whether the promise 
        covers foreign government officials who register under their own names 
        or third-party vendors hired by foreign governments to do business with 
        the Trump Organization; does not explain whether foreign organizations 
        signing tenant agreements with domestic Trump businesses, such as the 
        Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which is Trump Tower's biggest 
        tenant, qualifies; does not define what constitutes ``profits''; does 
        not address the fact that revenue received by a failing business still 
        provides value to that business even if there is no net profit; and has 
        no mechanism for the public to verify that the promise is being 
        fulfilled;
Whereas President Trump's lawyer claimed that ``it would be impossible to find 
        an institutional trustee that would be competent to run the Trump 
        Organization'' when there are dozens if not hundreds of highly qualified 
        trustees who handle complicated business situations like the disposition 
        of the Trump Organization;
Whereas, at the January 11, 2017, press conference, President-elect Trump's 
        lawyer implied that the only reason people have raised the Emoluments 
        Clause is over ``routine business transactions like paying for hotel 
        rooms'' and claimed that ``[p]aying for a hotel room is not a gift or a 
        present, and it has nothing to do with an office. It's not an 
        emolument.'';
Whereas a comprehensive study of the Emoluments Clause written by Richard 
        Painter, Norman Eisen, and Lawrence Tribe, two of whom are former ethics 
        counsels to past Presidents, has concluded that ``since emoluments are 
        properly defined as including `profit' from any employment, as well as 
        `salary,' it is clear that even remuneration fairly earned in commerce 
        can qualify'';
Whereas numerous legal and constitutional experts, including several former 
        White House ethics counsels, have also made clear that the arrangement 
        announced on January 11, 2017, in which the President fails to exit the 
        ownership of his businesses through use of a blind trust or equivalent, 
        will leave the President with a personal financial interest in 
        businesses that collect foreign government payments and benefits, which 
        raises both constitutional and public interest concerns;
Whereas Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and 
        George W. Bush have set the precedent of using true blind trusts, in 
        which their holdings were liquidated and placed in new investments 
        unknown to them by an independent trustee who managed them free of 
        familial bias;
Whereas the continued intermingling of the business of the Trump Organization 
        and the work of government has the potential to constitute the foreign 
        corruption so feared by the Founding Fathers and to betray the trust of 
        America's citizens;
Whereas, on January 20, 2017, President Trump swore an oath to preserve, 
        protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the rights, 
        privileges and limitations of which are defined and guarded by the 
        Federal judiciary of the United States; and
Whereas Congress has an institutional, constitutional obligation to ensure that 
        the President of the United States does not violate the Emoluments 
        Clause of the Constitution, Federal law, or fundamental principles of 
        ethics, and is discharging the obligations of office based on the 
        national interest, not based on personal interest: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 
That Congress--
            (1) finds the promised actions outlined by President Donald 
        J. Trump at his January 11, 2017, press conference wholly 
        inadequate and insufficient to ensure compliance with the 
        Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution;
            (2) calls upon President Trump to follow the precedent 
        established by prior Presidents and convert his assets to 
        simple, conflict-free holdings, adopt blind trusts managed by 
        an independent trustee with no relationship to Donald J. Trump 
        or his businesses, or take other equivalent measures;
            (3) calls upon President Trump not to use the powers or 
        opportunities of his position as President of the United States 
        for any purpose related to the Trump Organization; and
            (4) regards, in the absence of express affirmative 
        authorization by Congress, dealings that Donald J. Trump, as 
        President of the United States, may have through his companies 
        with foreign governments or entities owned or controlled by 
        foreign governments as potential violations of the Emoluments 
        Clause.
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