February, 15 2017, 01:30pm EDT
Top Legal Experts to NY Attorney General: Revoke the Trump Organization's Charter
Free Speech for People demands investigation into President’s unconstitutional conflicts of interest and dissolution of Trump Organization
NEW YORK, N.Y.
Free Speech for People (FSFP), a non-partisan legal advocacy organization, today delivered a letter to New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman demanding he investigate whether to revoke the charter of The Trump Organization, Inc. due to the President's ownership stake in the corporation and its history of illegal activity. Unlike existing legal actions against the President's conflicts of interest, the legal strategy FSFP unveiled today is based on Attorney General Schneiderman's power and legal precedent to pursue this investigation in New York state court without permission from Congress or any other arm of the federal government.
"The President's continued ownership stake in the Trump Organization poses a grave threat to our Constitution and our country. Attorney General Schneiderman needs to investigate the Trump Organization's corrupt involvement in the President's self-enrichment scheme, and whether to dissolve the company and revoke its corporate charter," said Ron Fein, Legal Director for Free Speech For People. "The Attorney General of New York does not need Congress to pursue this investigation. He does not need the state legislature. Right now, he can use the power the people of New York have vested in him to ensure that the President is not above the law."
According to Section 1101 of New York's Business Corporation Law, the Attorney General is empowered to dissolve a corporation and revoke its charter if that corporation abuses or exceeds its legal authority. As the letter details, the Trump Organization--which is incorporated and headquartered in New York--is subject to this process due to its continued entanglement in presidential corruption and ethics violations in violation of New York public policy and the U.S. Constitution, as well as its pattern of allegedly fraudulent and illegal business activity. The Trump Organization--the nerve center for an empire of about 500 affiliated corporations and LLCs that own Trump's empire of hotels, golf courses, and other properties--could be placed in receivership by a state judge if the Attorney General pursues an investigation into revoking the corporation's charter.
The letter is also being made available to the public on FSFP's website. FSFP is encouraging members of the public to sign a petition urging the Attorney General to pursue this investigation, and to contact his office to voice support: https://freespeechforpeople.org/revoke-trump-charter/.
"President Trump's unprecedented corruption of the Oval Office abuses the public trust and directly violates the U.S. Constitution," said John Bonifaz, the Co-Founder and President of Free Speech for People. "We urge the New York Attorney General to initiate this investigation, and we urge people across the country to join us in this campaign to hold the Trump Organization accountable under the law."
In their letter, Free Speech for People lays out a two-part legal argument for why the Trump Organization is acting in excess and abuse of the law, and why the Attorney General should investigate revoking its charter:
1. By continuing to operate under Trump family ownership and control while President Trump is in the White House, the Trump Organization flagrantly abuses its state-granted powers, violating the public policies of New York State against corruption and conflicts of interest, and violating the U.S. Constitution, including the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. The Trump Organization and the President have consistently failed to take the necessary measures to comply with the law, such as placing the President's controlling interest in a blind trust.
2. The Trump Organization has a documented history of alleged illegal, fraudulent, and abusive activity--including racial discrimination in housing, fraud against customers and investors, and violations of labor law and campaign finance law--demonstrating that it is acting outside its legal authority.
"New York's law is clear: A corporation forfeits its charter when its business is persistently fraudulent or violates the public policy of the state--and the Trump Organization is quite clearly failing on both of these counts," said Jonathan Abady, counsel for Free Speech for People and founding partner of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady. "The case we lay out is one grounded in state and Constitutional law, and based on the public and documented statements and behavior of Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. We are confident that the Attorney General will give this matter careful consideration and come to the same conclusions we did."
"Never in our nation's history, until now, has a business corporation been effectively merged with the presidency of the United States to enable the President and his family to use the presidency to enrich themselves," said Ben Clements, counsel to Free Speech for People and Chairman of its Board of Directors. "The use of the Trump Organization to facilitate this corruption and continuous violations of the United States Constitution is contrary to New York law and it is incumbent on the Attorney General to investigate and take appropriate action."
The Attorney General of New York has had the power to revoke corporate charters for more than a century. For example, in 1994, the Attorney General successfully brought suit to compel the judicial dissolution of a for-profit business school network that had conducted its business in a persistently illegal manner and contrary to public policy.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
LATEST NEWS
UN Chief Warns of Israel's Syria Invasion and Land Seizures
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
Dec 12, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
While Israel argues that its invasion of Syria does not violate a 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries because the Assad dynasty no longer rules the neighboring nation, Dujarric said Guterres maintains that Israel must uphold its obligations under the deal, "including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the cease-fire and stability in Golan."
Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders Says 'Political Movement,' Not Murder, Is the Path to Medicare for All
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
Dec 12, 2024
Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
Asked about Thompson's alleged killer—26-year-old Luigi Mangione, whose reported manifesto railed against the nation's expensive healthcare system and low life expectancy—Sanders said: "You don't kill people. It's abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. It was a terrible act. But what it did show online is that many, many people are furious at the health insurance companies who make huge profits denying them and their families the healthcare that they desperately need."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system," he continued, noting the tens of thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't get to a doctor.
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
Two other Medicare for All advocates, Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also made clear to Business Insider that they oppose Thompson's murder but understand some of the responses to it.
"Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents," said Ocasio-Cortez. "We also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst, not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family's lives."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
After facing some criticism for those comments, Warren added Wednesday: "Violence is never the answer. Period... I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Reports Target Israeli Army for 'Unprecedented Massacre' of Gaza Journalists
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.
Dec 12, 2024
Reports released this week from two organizations that advocate for journalists underscore just how deadly Gaza has become for media workers.
Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
Bruttin added that "many of these reporters were clearly identifiable as journalists and protected by this status, yet they were shot or killed in Israeli strikes that blatantly disregarded international law. This was compounded by a deliberate media blackout and a block on foreign journalists entering the strip."
When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
IFJ lists out each of the slain journalists in its 139 count, which includes the journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, who was killed with journalist Mustafa Thuraya when Israeli forces targeted their car while they were in northern Rafah in January 2024.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular