By Andrew Chung
(Reuters) – Five days after the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday halted lawsuits accusing him of violating the U.S. Constitution’s anti-corruption provisions by maintaining ownership of his business empire including a hotel near the White House while in office.
The justices threw out lower court orders that had allowed the lawsuits – one filed by the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland and the other by plaintiffs including a watchdog group – to proceed, while also declining to hear Trump’s appeals of those decisions. The justices ordered the lower courts to dismiss the cases because they are now moot.
The plaintiffs accused Trump of running afoul of the Constitution’s “emoluments” provisions that bar presidents from accepting gifts or payments from foreign and state governments without congressional approval. The plaintiffs had asked the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s appeals because the dispute would disappear once Trump left office last Wednesday.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
