Trump in emolument discussion

Rick Morain

Have you ever heard someone refer to an “emolument” in a context other than the U.S. Constitution? Probably not. The word is somewhat archaic, and rarely appears other than as a reference to a gift provided to a public official, especially the President. It came into its own during President Trump’s first term, when Democrats accused him of violating the Constitution by accepting gifts from foreign powers, particularly in the form of paying high prices to stay in a Trump hotel.

Now the same President is once again front and center in an emolument discussion. In this case it’s a luxury plane worth several hundred of millions of dollars that the U.S. Air Force accepted Wednesday as a gift from the Emirate of Qatar.

Merriam-Webster defines “emolument” as “the returns arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites.” The Constitution provides for pay to the President, to be determined by Congress. That’s an emolument. But the Constitution also (in Article I, Section 9) forbids the President, or any other public official, from accepting any foreign emolument on his own:

“ . . . no Person holding any Office or Trust under them [the United States], 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.”

There’s a very good reason for that. Alexander Hamilton (who else?) in “The Federalist Papers” cautioned: “One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption.” The danger of corruption is all too apparent in a foreign power’s offer to give the U.S. President, or his government, a multimillion luxury airplane.

There were a couple of possibilities for how acceptance of the offer of the plane could be couched: either it would be a gift to the U.S. Department of Defense, as the Qatari Prime Minister said, or it would be a gift to President Trump himself. There are complications with both interpretations, in addition to the underlying suspicion that the offer is, at bottom, a bribe.

First: as a government-to-government transaction, Trump escapes the charge that he’s accepting a personal gift from a foreign head of state. But it now becomes the property of the United States, and he can’t take possession of it for his presidential library (which the White House is saying will occur), or for any other purpose, when he leaves office.

It almost certainly has to remain a U.S. property, to transport any President, Republican or Democrat. Otherwise it’s simply a deferred emolument, which should be rejected by U.S. courts as a violation of Article I, Section 9.

Second: if Congress had given Trump permission to accept the plane as his own property, that also would have got him off the legal hook. (See, once again, Article I, Section 9).

But given the avalanche of unfavorable publicity cascading from the offer, coupled with the narrow Republican margins in both houses of Congress, it was highly unlikely that Congress would have empowered Trump to accept the offer personally. Democrats apparently unanimously oppose it, so virtually all the GOP members would have to have given it a green light. Even diehard Magas would have to think twice.

Air Force acceptance of the plane will still encounter stiff headwinds, both from Democrats and from Republicans of conscience and ethics. If Trump tries to expropriate it for his library after he leaves office, he will not be unchallenged.

Rick Morain is a reporter and columnist with the Jefferson Herald.