It is a measure of the foresight of the Founding Fathers that every few years we suddenly consider some obscure part of the Constitution that had long been ignored, from the procedures for impeachment to the resolution of deadlocked elections. This year, thanks to Donald Trump’s sprawling global business empire, it’s the foreign-emoluments clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8):
How obscure is the foreign-emoluments clause? There are few references to it in the convention and ratifying debates of 1787, the courts have never been asked to interpret it, and Congress has never charged any federal official with violating it. Potential violations rarely get farther than the Office of Legal Counsel, which in 2009 advised President Obama that his Nobel Peace Prize (a gratuitous gift if ever there was one) did not violate the clause, since the Nobel committee is not a foreign sovereign.
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