A legal analyst says the Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump the tools to quietly sidestep one of the Constitution’s oldest anti-corruption rules.
On Slate’s “Amicus” podcast, legal writer Mark Joseph Stern argued that the court’s expansion of executive power has let Trump slip past the emoluments clauses, the twin provisions meant to stop a president from cashing in on the office through foreign or domestic payments.
“So this is just another case of an imperial president constructed out of whole cloth by a Supreme Court that is not following the original meaning or plain text of the Constitution,” Stern said.
He pointed to the justices’ 2024 immunity decision and their June ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, which ended for-cause protections for independent agency heads and expanded the president’s removal power. The court cast Slaughter as a separation-of-powers correction. Stern said the rulings let Trump “smuggle emoluments through those loopholes” while claiming courts cannot review him and Congress cannot interfere.
Co-host Dahlia Lithwick noted the clauses were long self-enforced, with presidents historically seeking congressional sign-off before accepting foreign gifts. The Constitution provides no enforcement mechanism, and emoluments suits against Trump in his first term were dismissed in 2021 on procedural grounds after he left office, so no court has ruled on the merits.
The debate lands as Trump has accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar and reported more than $1 billion in crypto income tied to his family’s ventures.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who has pressed the White House over the profits, filed two resolutions this year demanding Trump comply with both clauses.
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