President Donald Trump managed to defeat the first lawsuit challenging his receipt of business profits while in office, but knocking out the second case over his alleged violations of the Constitution's emoluments clauses may not be so easy.
As a daylong hearing on that second suit kicked off in a Maryland courtroom Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Peter Messitte repeatedly indicated he wasn't persuaded by aspects of a ruling a fellow judge in New York City issued last month dismissing a high-profile case over Trump's refusal to divest his business holdings.
Messitte said he thought U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels was too quick to cast aside arguments that competitors to Trump's businesses have legal standing to challenge benefits he's receiving from his hotels, buildings and other ventures.
"He just said that in a sentence. There was no analysis at all," Messitte said after Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate invokved Daniels' opinion. "There's very little analysis in his declarations....I'm not really bound by even the logic at this point, with all respect to Judge Daniels."
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