Shortly before taking office, President Donald Trump promised to give up any profits his businesses make from dealings with foreign governments. | Getty Feds fight suit over foreign payments to Trump Justice Department offers first response to cases challenging president's business profits

The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit claiming that President Donald Trump is violating the Constitution by profiting from business deals with foreign governments.

The filing Friday evening in U.S. District Court in Manhattan is the first substantive legal response from the Trump administration to a series of suits challenging Trump's effort to maintain ties to his real estate empire as he serves as president.


"Historical evidence confirms that the Emoluments Clauses were not designed to reach commercial transactions that a President (or other federal official) may engage in as an ordinary citizen through his business enterprises," the federal government argued in a motion to dismiss a case brought by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in January, just three days after Trump was sworn in. "At the time of the Nation’s founding, government officials were not given generous compensations, and many federal officials were employed with the understanding that they would continue to have income from private pursuits."

The Justice Department brief, submitted under the name of Acting Civil Division Chief Chad Readler, draws considerably on early American history, discussing the business dealings of presidents such as George Washington, James Madison and James Monroe. Government lawyers noted that Washington sold crops to England, Portugal and Jamaica.

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"There is no evidence of these presidents taking any steps to ensure that they were not transacting business with a foreign or domestic government instrumentality," the Justice Department brief said.

Shortly before taking office, Trump promised to give up any profits his businesses make from dealings with foreign governments. However, no details of that plan emerged until last month when a Trump Organization flyer was made public indicating that while some money from foreign government business would be donated to the U.S. Treasury, there would be no effort to determine whether individual patrons at Trump hotels or other businesses were affiliated with foreign governments.

The group pressing the lawsuit complained Friday about another aspect of the government's brief: an assertion that the organizations and individuals pursuing the case have no standing to enforce the Constitution's limits on what the founders referred to as "foreign emoluments."

"It's clear from the government's response that they don't believe anyone can go to court to stop the president from systematically violating the constitution. We heartily disagree and look forward to our day in court," CREW spokesman Jordan Libowitz said in a statement.