Guess what? Your tax dollars are being used to protect Donald Trump's private businesses from lawsuits.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

Taxpayers are footing the legal bill for at least 10 Justice Department lawyers and paralegals to work on lawsuits related to President Trump's private businesses. 

Neither the White House nor the Justice Department will say how much it is costing taxpayers, but federal payroll records show the salaries of the government lawyers assigned to the cases range from about $133,000 to $185,000. 

The government legal team is defending President Trump in four lawsuits stemming from his unusual decision not to divest himself from hundreds of his companies that are entangled with customers that include foreign governments and officials. 

In the cases, Justice Department attorneys are not defending policy actions Trump took as president. Instead, the taxpayer-funded lawyers are making the case that it is not unconstitutional for the president's private companies to earn profits from foreign governments and officials while he's in office. 

The government lawyers and Trump's private attorneys are making the same arguments — that the Constitution's ban on a president taking gifts from foreign interests in exchange for official actions does not apply to foreign government customers buying things from Trump's companies. The plaintiffs, including ethics groups and competing businesses, argue the payments pose an unconstitutional conflict of interest.

Hey, remember when the Founding Fathers laid out all of those rules to protect this country from becoming an oligarchy or from being taken over by a dictator?

Boy those were the good old days, weren't they? 

Donald Trump's new DC hotel turns a profit in excess of 2 million dollars. Who says crime doesn't pay?

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Donald Trump’s company turned a $1.97 million profit at its opulent Trump International Hotel so far in 2017, dramatically beating its expectations and giving the first hard numbers to critics who charge that Trump is profiting from his presidency. 

The Trump Organization had projected that it would lose $2.1 million during the first four months of 2017 as it established a new hotel and convention business in the nation’s capital, according to newly released federal documents. 

Instead the hotel, with its namesake in the White House down the street, is already turning a hefty profit and charging more for its rooms than most or all of the city’s other hotels. 

The $4.1 million swing from projected losses to profitability represents a 192 percent improvement over what the Trump family planned to make when the company opened the hotel in the fall. 

Driving the profits are the extraordinary prices guests have been willing to pay for rooms, including members of Trump’s Cabinet who have stayed or lived there, as well as big spending on food and beverages in the meeting areas, bar and restaurant — spots frequented by members of Trump’s inner circle and other Republican leaders. 

This year, guests have paid an average of $652.98 a night to stay there, beating the company’s expectations by 57 percent, according to documents posted online recently by the General Services Administration.

Those documents by the way have apparently now been removed.

Late last night the government took down the documents this story is based upon https://t.co/MF1p7BuZUT

— Jonathan O'Connell (@OConnellPostbiz) August 11, 2017

Trump did not run for president to help this country. Donald Trump ran for president to line his pockets.

Justice Department uses poor George Washington to justify allowing Trump to continue taking money from foreign governments while in the White House.

Courtesy of Bloomberg: 

George Washington did it, so Donald Trump can, too. 

That’s the Justice Department’s take on why the 45th president isn’t violating the U.S. Constitution by accepting payments for goods and services from foreign governments without congressional approval. 

The foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution doesn’t apply to fair-market commercial transactions, such as hotel bills, golf club fees, licensing payments and office rent, the Justice department argued Friday in a filing. The government is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit brought by a watchdog group that claims Trump’s business dealings violate the Constitution. 

If accepted by the court, the argument would eliminate a major legal obstacle for Trump’s businesses to keep money from foreign officials and companies owned by foreign governments. 

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, sued Trump within days of his inauguration in January, claiming foreign officials are doing business with Trump properties as a way to curry favor with the president. The group is seeking an order from U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan that Trump is violating the foreign emoluments clause and the domestic emoluments clause, which specifically bars presidents from taking payments from federal or state officials.

The argument essentially states that since Washington's Mt. Vernon plantation sold flour and cornmeal to various foreign lands while he served as President, that it is the same as allowing the Trump organization to engage in huge real estate deals with foreign countries that could be worth millions of dollars, and may also serve as a way to influence Trump's policies toward those countries.

In their desperation they also cited the fact that some of President Obama's books were sold overseas so the royalties he received from those sales would also violate the emoluments clause, a rationalization so pathetic that it does not simply strain credulity, it takes it out back and stomps on its neck.

Donald Trump clearly does not see the presidency as an opportunity to serve his country, but rather sees it as the greatest advertisement opportunity of his life, with which he can dramatically increase his wealth.

And apparently the now ironically named Justice Department is working to help him do that. 

Artists shame Donald Trump by projecting the truth on his own building.

Being projected on Trump Hotel in DC right now. #resist pic.twitter.com/RJEAqOnGgp

— Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) May 16, 2017

Well. This tour bus stopped in front of Trump Hotel, taking in some Presidential history. #open24hrs #TrumpRussia@bellvisuals & co pic.twitter.com/maOXbyMXbO

— Adrian Parsons (@adrian_parsons) May 16, 2017

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

Artists in Washington D.C. briefly blasted the Trump International Hotel with a projection instructing guests to drop off their foreign cash inside. 

Robin Bell said he kicked off the colorful display from a van parked across the street around 9:15 p.m. Monday. 

It lasted 10 minutes before a security guard for the Old Post Office stood in front of the projector, blocking its feed. 

“We had a couple great moments. A tour bus pulled up, people started clapping and taking photos,” Bell told the Daily News. “Everyone on the street, except for the security guard, seemed really happy.”

Okay that's just brilliant. 

(H/T to Democratic Underground.)