Fresh court defeat for Trumps travel ban
AFP
He faces new lawsuit over business empire A US appeals court has upheld a decision blocking President Trumps revised travel ban on people from six mainly Muslim nations, BBC reports. A lower court had issued the injunction on the grounds that the ban was discriminatory after a challenge by the state of Hawaii.
The 90-day ban was to apply to people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also called for a 120-day ban on all refugees.
The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was reviewing a March ruling by a Hawaii-based federal judge that blocked parts of Mr Trumps order.
In their ruling, the judges said that immigration, even for the President, is not a one-person show.
They said Mr Trump had failed to show that the entry of people from the six countries mentioned in the ban, as well as the refugees, would be detrimental to US interests.
AFP adds: Officials in Maryland and the US capital Washington will sue President Donald Trump for accepting payments and benefits from foreign governments through his business empire, news reports said Sunday night.
The suit to be unveiled Monday centers on the so-called emoluments clause, which bans US officials from taking gifts or other benefits from foreign governments.
An NGO that centers on ethics issues filed a similar suit in January. But this is the first one presented by government entities.
The announced lawsuit adds to Trumps woes as he grapples with congressional and a special prosecutors probes into his campaigns alleged ties with Russia, which US intelligence agencies say meddled aggressively in the 2016 election to held Trump win.
Since taking power in January, Trump has turned day to day control over his real estate empire and other assets to his adult
sons, but not sold them off as many in America said he should to avoid conflicts of interest.
The lawsuit will be filed Monday by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, the Washington Post reported.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said the case is about Trumps failure to separate his personal interests from his presidential duties. Frosh told the Post that the emoluments clause mandates that the president put the country first and not his own personal interest first. A key case in the dispute is a hotel that Trump opened last year by leasing a large, stately building that used to be a central post office, just down the road from the White House.
Aside from the issue of the foreign payments ban, Maryland and Washington complain that the presence of a Trump hotel hurts competing hotels in their jurisdictions. The Post cited examples of foreign government showing preference for that hotel over others, at what neighboring Maryland and Washington say is their expense.
