A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to throw out a lawsuit that claims President Donald Trump's ownership of a luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., violates the Constitution's ban on receiving financial benefits from the states or foreign leaders, NBC News reported.
By a vote of 9-6, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an effort by Trump's lawyers to get the case dismissed, saying that the federal court overseeing the case wrongly failed to rule on whether the president is immune from such lawsuits.
The case was brought two years ago by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, who claimed that Trump's hotel ownership violates the Constitution's emolument's clause. That provision bars forbids the president to receive "any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state" or any state in the U.S.
They contended he improperly benefits financially whenever foreign or state governments patronize the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, which the suit said competes unfairly with D.C.'s convention center and Maryland's National Harbor development, both of which earn local tax revenue and help area businesses.
Get the full story at NBCNews.com.
