Karl Racine, the attorney general for Washington, D.C., who last week launched a lawsuit against President Trump for allegedly using his office to further his private business interests, is now under attack for the appearance of using his own office to settle a business score.

Racine announced the lawsuit on June 12 at a press conference with Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, who is also party to the legal action. “Never in the history of this country have we had a president with these kinds of extensive business entanglements,” Racine said at a June 12 press conference.

But Racine has an inconvenient business entanglement of his own. It turns out that Racine is an investor in a Washington, D.C., business whose owners took Trump to court in March over claims that his association with the Trump International Hotel creates unfair competition.

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Diane Gross and Khalid Pitts, owners of the Cork Wine Bar and Cork Market and Tasting Room filed a lawsuit against Trump seeking that he end his association with the hotel. Racine is a “limited partner” in the Cork Market and Tasting Room, his 2017 financial disclosure form revealed.

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“Karl Racine has a small share in Cork, the wine market,” Racine said, when asked about his investment at the press conference last week. “Karl Racine — and the Office of Attorney General — are not lawyers for the Cork restaurant lawsuit against Trump. There is no conflict of interest.”

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This may be technically true. But it is also technically true, according to many legal experts, that Trump’s stake in the Trump International Hotel is in no way an illegal ethics violation.

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“The Compensation Clause in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7, does bar the president from taking ’emoluments’ from any state governments,” John-Michael Seibler, a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told LifeZette last week.

“But it is unreasonable to argue, as the state attorneys general do, that the clause is violated ‘when a state official stays at a Trump hotel and pays at the going rate,'” he said. But the bad optics of Trump’s ownership stake in Trump International were apparently grounds enough for Racine and Frosh to launch their lawsuit. One can only wonder if the bad optics of Racine’s investment in Cork will hurt that lawsuit.