The House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday that it would investigate President Trump’s efforts to host an international summit at his golf resort in Florida.
The probe will be part of the House Democrats’ broader examination of potential Trump violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which restricts the President from receiving things of value from foreign governments.
With the new revelations that Trump is pushing to hold the next G7 summit at his Doral resort, the committee “will take further investigative steps, including scheduling hearings and requesting additional documents from the White House,” chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said in a statement.
Nadler said the possible Emoluments Clause violations “are of significant interest and grave concern to the Committee as it considers whether to recommend articles of impeachment. ”
“Hosting the G7 Summit at Doral implicates both the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses, because it would entail both foreign and U.S. government spending to benefit the President, the latter potentially including both federal and state expenditures,” Nadler said. “More importantly, the Doral decision reflects perhaps the first publicly known instance in which foreign governments would be required to pay President Trump’s private businesses in order to conduct business with the United States.”
That Trump was pitching Doral as a G7 host was first reported in June and the President confirmed his interest in holding the summit there in comments promoting the resort this week.
