In First of Many, ACLU FOIA Request Seeks Information About the New President’s Conflicts of Interests
During the Trump administration, our country faces an unprecedented constellation of threats to the regular oversight processes that keep the powers that be in check. Faced with critical of the president as perpetrators of “fake news,” an era of one-party rule threatening healthy competition between the branches of government, the of democratic and ethical norms, and more, the ACLU and the citizenry will unfortunately have many opportunities to provide a public check to keep our government honest.
Well, we just couldn’t wait: on Thursday, we filed our first Freedom of Information Act request of the Trump Era, seeking documents relating President Trump’s actual or potential conflicts of interest relating to his business and family connections.
Since the election, it has become clear that during the Trump administration the public’s relentless focus on government transparency will be critical to documenting and pushing back against government violations of civil liberties. While Trump has, both during the election campaign and since his Electoral College victory, threatened to violate the Constitution in numerous ways, the presidential transition brought to the fore a host of potential ethical and financial conflicts of interest that undermine the Constitution in a pervasive way: by casting doubt on the longstanding American value of the impartiality in government decisionmaking.
As ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said:
"Trump took the oath, but he didn't take the steps necessary to ensure that he and his family’s business interests comply with the Constitution and other federal statutes. Freedom of information requests are our democracy’s X-ray and they will be vitally important to expose and curb the abuses of a president who believes the rules don’t apply to him and his family."
The sheer number of potential ethical issues facing our new president is sobering. Bipartisan ethics experts have alarm bells about Trump’s many business interests across the globe. He’s reportedly in millions of dollars in to foreign countries or entities, including China. He faces mounds of , with on the way. His son-in-law will have a White House office, in potential of the nepotism laws.
Indeed, some have even argued that upon taking the oath of office, the new president is already violating the Constitution — in particular, the now-famous Emoluments Clause. As a bipartisan quartet of ethics experts and lawyers this week:
"The emoluments clause forbids any 'Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States]' from accepting any 'any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State' (unless Congress explicitly consents).
By 'emolument,' this provision means any benefit derived from dealing with a foreign government. It is well-settled that receipt of such emoluments is strictly prohibited for persons holding positions of trust with the U.S. government. A U.S. official need not also have an 'office' with a foreign government in order to receive an emolument from it.
The Framers included this provision in the Constitution to guarantee that private entanglements with foreign states would not blur the loyalties of federal officials, above all the president. Yet that lesson seems lost on Trump, whose continued significant ownership stake in the Trump Organization forges an unbreakable bond between Trump and a global empire that will benefit or suffer in innumerable ways from its dealings with foreign governments. Trump’s actions in office will thus be haunted by the specter (and perhaps reality) of divided interests."
That’s why we’re stepping in now, using FOIA — one of America’s most critical guarantors of government transparency and the central mechanism by which ordinary Americans can provide ongoing public checks and balances on elected officials in the political branches. We want to know how the Trump transition team and the government offices tasked with supervising ethics-related issues for the incoming administration have been thinking about and confronting these potential conflicts. In pursuit of that information, we’ve asked for a gamut of documents — legal opinions, policy advisories, communications, and more — that address them. And we aim to publish the responses so that the American public can do its job conducting broad-based democratic oversight of the new administration.
The many conflict-of-interest issues presented by Donald Trump’s assumption of the presidency threaten to undermine the public’s confidence in government, the global community’s trust in our nation’s chief executive, and even potentially our national security. With this FOIA — surely the first of many to come during the next four years — we hope to facilitate the public’s indispensable role in checking the power of our public officials.
Because remember: While the president may ordinarily play the boss on television, now that he’s taken the oath of office, he works for us.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
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Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. FitchNetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Free Speech
Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.
We break down the absurd-but-true history of trying to censor sexual speech under the guise of "keeping kids safe." -
Minnesota Supreme CourtNov 2024
Free Speech
Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn RiotEnergy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn Riot
This case in the Minnesota Supreme Court asks whether the MFFIA's protections apply to newsgatherers even if they are alleged to have engaged in trespassing while newsgathering. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota and law firm Biersdorf & Associations, filed a brief representing Unicorn Riot, a media organization that covered protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The brief argues that MFFIA and constitutional reporter’s privileges, under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, protect Unicorn Riot from having to comply with Energy Transfer’s subpoenas.