Gunfight at the Not O.K. Doral

This past weekend Trump sent out a tweet withdrawing his Doral country club from hosting the G-7 Summit there, He said that he would have been willing to host the summit "at NO PROFIT" or even if legal "at cost."  (Yesterday, in the Oval Office he even lowered the price bizarrely to..."free"!!  Yes, really.)

Putting aside for the moment that the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution says nothing in the slightest about making a "profit" but is only about accepting anything of value, when Trump ran for president he said that he divested active interest in running his businesses and put it in some sort of "Trust" (not a blind Trust exactly, but still he said he would have no controlling interest and wouldn't even talk about it with the kiddies.) So, how in the world could he himself say he'd be willing to host the G-7 "at NO PROFIT" -- or, for that matter, even know what the cost would be???

And going further, consider for a moment what Trump also tweeted on the subject, writing --

"Doral in Miami would have been the best place to hold the G-7, and free, but too much heat from the Do Nothing Radical Left Democrats & their Partner, the Fake News Media! I’m surprised that they allow me to give up my $400,000 Plus Presidential Salary! We’ll find someplace else!"

Wait, hold on!  He'll "find someplace else"??? What gives? Didn't the White House supposedly do a full study of all possible places?  Which is how they supposedly determined that Doral was supposedly the best place over supposedly all the others.  So, why then not just go to #2 on the list. There has to be a "second best" choice if a study was done. The only where there wouldn't be is if they didn't even really do a study.  Right??

There's also the question of how Trump would even know that the offer for using Doral would be the best and lowest bid, and why doing it "at cost" for "NO PROFIT" would undercut the other offers.  Bidding is supposed to be done blind.  One property bidding isn't supposed to know what any other place has bid, specifically so that they can't undercut them in their offer.

But as questionable and problematic as all this is, it takes a backseat to his meltdown Q&A in the Oval Office on Monday, which John Hardwood of MSNBC said was "20 minutes of nonsense."  It came across like a mob boss, talking about getting "respect" and full of nervous, pompous twitches.  The only thing missing was a pinkie ring and him saying, "Bah-dah-bing, bah-dah-boom" -- and a standby psychiatrist on call with sedatives at the ready. But what stood out most was his calling it the "phony Emoluments Clause."  For the record, it's Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 8.

But it wasn't enough for Trump to leave it there.  He had to bring in George Washington (!!) and rants about how he did business when president and even had two separates desks in his office -- one for the presidency and one for his business.  So, see, according to Trump that proves Emoluments is phony.

The problem here (and it's a Really Big One -- and one that reporters should asked about the next time Trump brings up George Washington doing outside business) is that the Emoluments Clause does NOT say that a sitting president can't have an outside business. He can.  That's okay.  What isn't okay, though, is that the U.S. Constitution says the president can't receive any gift or present from a foreign leader or foreign state or receive outside money from the federal government or any U.S. state. Running a private business while president is NOT illegal.  Getting money from these specific sources for any reason whether or not the president has a separate business IS illegal.  

The ludicrous thing with Trump comparing himself to George Washington being a farmer in Virginia in the late 1700s is that Trump's businesses ares worldwide and such that they overlap with the likely possibility of deep abuse of foreign gifts and domestic payment from states, including tax breaks.

Fun Fact:  Just yesterday (whimsically after Eric Trump heart-wrenchingly bleated about other politicians children making money off their father's name, something the Trump kids didn't do and haven't even done any international business since their dad took office) the Trump Organization sent out a tweet proudly announcing their first Trump Tower project in India!  No, really.

And yes, India is an international company.

Honest.  This is all real.

Impressive shot of #TrumpTowersPune, our first project in India! The two striking glass facade towers are 22 stories each and offer breathtaking 360° views of the city pic.twitter.com/owPhsOL4Uv

— The Trump Organization (@Trump) October 21, 2019

But going back to George Washington for a moment -- it will not shock you to learn that George Washington did not have two separate desks like professor Trump taught the world today.  Yes, Trump lied.  Unbelievable, I know.  The Crooks and Liars website fact-checked it out here, and discovered that indeed Washington only had one desk.  Which he bought himself, because he wanted to take it home with him after he left office.

Thereby giving us what tourists to our nation's capital know as the Washington Emolument.​