The emoluments clause is meaningless

Is this really what Democrats are staking their impeachment case on?

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons, Anson_iStock)

Who says that civics education is dead? From what I can see, so far from being ignorant of the basic workings of government, we have become an entire nation of Harvard Law professors. Remember two years ago when every other journalist was a scholar of the Logan Act? After that it was the scope and authority of the executive branch. Forget what that nacarat oaf in the Oval Office says. We're a very smart bunch.

And now we've moved on to something even more abstruse, the constitutional meaning of the foreign emoluments clause, upon which the people who are paid to pretend that they are seeking Donald Trump's impeachment have recently lighted. Those of you who do not spend your weekends in tricorn hats and woolen breeches handing out Cato Institute pocket Constitutions in a church parking lot — as I assume the average — can be forgiven for not having heard of it. It's the bit in Article 1, Section 9 in which the federal government is prohibited from issuing titles of nobility and certain persons from accepting them from foreign governments. Here is the full text:

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.