{"id":16848,"date":"2018-07-29T10:29:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T15:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=16848"},"modified":"2018-07-29T10:29:11","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T15:29:11","slug":"another-attack-on-the-flank-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/07\/29\/another-attack-on-the-flank-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Attack On The Flank, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

I ran across more information concerning the decision of Judge Messite to permit the emoluments lawsuit pursued by the Attorneys General of Maryland and D.C. against President Trump to go forth. It boils down to\u00a0John Mikhail researching the dictionaries available to the authors of the Constitution and using the information to rebut the Department of Justice’s defense of the President’s continuing business links. It’s at the Balkinization<\/strong><\/em> blog, as mentioned<\/a> by WaPo<\/strong><\/em>, and here’s a bit from what appears to be the initial blog posting<\/a> on the subject:<\/p>\n

\n

… why the Trump Justice Department\u2019s narrow definition of \u201cemolument\u201d in CREW v. Trump cannot withstand scrutiny.<\/p>\n

In its motion to dismiss in CREW et al. v. Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) defines the word \u201cemolument\u201d as \u201cprofit arising from office or employ.\u201d DOJ claims that this \u201coriginal understanding\u201d of \u201cemolument\u201d is both grounded in \u201ccontemporaneous dictionary definitions\u201d and justifies an \u201coffice-and-employment-specific construction\u201d of that term. On this basis, it argues that the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution \u201cdo not prohibit any company in which the President has any financial interest from doing business with any foreign, federal, or state instrumentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, DOJ\u2019s historical definition of \u201cemolument\u201d is inaccurate, unrepresentative, and misleading. Particularly because the government may seek to utilize its flawed definition in subsequent court filings, this Article seeks to correct the historical record. It does so based on a comprehensive study of how \u201cemolument\u201d is defined in English language dictionaries published from 1604 to 1806, as well as in common law dictionaries published between 1523 and 1792.<\/p>\n

Among other things, the Article demonstrates that every English dictionary definition of \u201cemolument\u201d from 1604 to 1806 relies on one or more of the elements of the broad definition DOJ rejects in its brief: \u201cprofit,\u201d \u201cadvantage,\u201d \u201cgain,\u201d or \u201cbenefit.\u201d Furthermore, over 92% of these dictionaries define \u201cemolument\u201d exclusively in these terms, with no reference to \u201coffice\u201d or \u201cemployment.\u201d By contrast, DOJ\u2019s preferred definition \u2014 \u201cprofit arising from office or employ\u201d \u2014 appears in less than 8% of these dictionaries. Moreover, even these outlier dictionaries always include \u201cgain, or advantage\u201d in their definitions, a fact obscured by DOJ\u2019s selective quotation of only one part of its favored definition from Barclay (1774). The impression DOJ creates in its brief by contrasting four historical definitions of \u201cemolument\u201d \u2014 two broad and two narrow \u2014 is, therefore, highly misleading.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Followed by some lovely tables demonstrating, I assume, the fallacy of the DoJ’s<\/strong><\/em> position. In some ways, I dislike the Internet, but WaPo<\/strong><\/em> suggests that, prior to the Internet, this research would taken years; now it takes weeks. But it’s also an incidental rebuttal of my own position that legal words shouldn’t change<\/a> their meaning over time, since it appears emoluments has done so. Will legal proceedings become ever more slower as the years pass and we must translate every law from its original wording to contemporary wording?<\/p>\n

And will there be a word describing this occupation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I ran across more information concerning the decision of Judge Messite to permit the emoluments lawsuit pursued by the Attorneys General of Maryland and D.C. against President Trump to go forth. It boils down to\u00a0John Mikhail researching the dictionaries available to the authors of the Constitution and using the information \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16849,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16848\/revisions\/16849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}