The order was issued without comment or disagreement.
There were two cases covering the matter before the judges. One was initiated by lawyers from Maryland and Washington, DC, who argued that Trump violated the constitution by accepting payments from foreign and domestic governments through the Trump International Hotel in DC. They said they were at a disadvantage in the competition for deals with foreign and state officials who may choose to do business with entities in which the president has a financial interest to obtain favors.
A second case was brought up by several members of the hospitality industry who own or work in hotels or restaurants in New York and Washington, who also argued that they were put at a competitive disadvantage.
“I am proud of the work we have done to ensure that the Constitution’s anti-corruption rules are not forgotten,” he wrote.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics group in Washington, which participated in the cases against Trump, said on Monday that the lawsuits “alerted the American people for four years of widespread corruption that came from a president who maintains a global business and takes benefits and payments from foreign and domestic governments. “
“Only Trump, losing the presidency and stepping down, ended these corrupt constitutional violations and stopped these innovative processes,” Noah Bookbinder, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.
At the heart of the case was the Constitution’s Fees Clause, which has faced few judicial interpretations since it was written nearly 250 years ago.
The Fees Clause prohibits a president from receiving an “fee” or profit from any “foreign King, Prince or State”, unless Congress agrees. The so-called domestic fee clause gives the president the right to receive a salary and benefits fixed in advance by Congress, but prohibits him from receiving “any other fee from the United States”.
“The Supreme Court procedural order not only overturns two lower court decisions, but also orders the rejection of the entire dispute – leaving for some time to resolve the many issues that Trump’s conduct has raised about the Fees Clause,” he said. Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court Analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
“Usually, the Court follows such a step only when the winning party debates a case while the appeal is pending – unlike here, where disputes have become debatable because Trump’s term has ended,” he added. “Today’s orders suggest that the court is increasingly willing to invoke this doctrine to avoid highly charged political disputes, even if the discussion was not caused by the parties that won below.”
A court of first instance allowed 38 subpoenas that were handed over to five federal agencies that required information about the money spent by those agencies at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.
In court documents, Trump’s Justice Department lawyers argued that the lower court in the case brought by Maryland and DC “fundamentally erred in allowing this extraordinary and unprecedented process to continue” and called the alleged injury “understated and speculative.”
DC Attorney General Karl Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said in a joint statement on Monday that their case “will serve as a precedent that will help prevent anyone else from using the presidency or other federal office for personal financial gains the way President Trump has done for the past four years. ”
“(Trump) still has the money. When any other federal employee violates the fee clause, he has to lose the money,” Shaub wrote.
This story has been updated with additional details and reactions.