David Cole writes in the New York Review of Books that Trump is “almost certainly” violating the United States Constitution every day that he refuses to divest from his international business empire.

He writes (this is an excerpt):

President Trump almost certainly began violating the Constitution the moment he took the oath of office. It’s true that conflict-of-interest statutes don’t cover the president—not because we don’t care about compromised presidents, but because such statutes generally require officeholders to recuse themselves from decisions in which they have a personal financial stake, and in the president’s case, recusal is rarely a workable option, since there is no alternative decision-maker.

But the Constitution subjects the president to a conflict-of-interest law: the so-called “emoluments” clause. That clause provides that no federal officeholder may, absent express approval by Congress, accept “any present, Emolument,…of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” It is designed to ensure that federal officials, from the president on down, serve only the interest of the American public, and are not compromised by foreign influence. In 1787, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed the provision at the Constitutional Convention, urging “the necessity of preserving foreign Ministers & other officers of the US independent of external influence.”1 At the Virginia convention to ratify the Constitution, Edmund Jennings Randolph explained that the clause was “provided to prevent corruption.”2

The emoluments clause is a categorical bar against a president receiving payments from foreign states. Recognizing that divided loyalties are difficult to discern, that self-interest is an extremely powerful motivator, and that foreign states may seek to buy influence, the Framers chose to ban all presents or “emoluments…of any kind whatever.”

The sole exception was where Congress expressly authorized a transaction, presumably on the theory that such a public and transparent accounting would reduce the risk of corruption and undue influence. According to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1981, an “emolument” is any “profit or gain arising from station, office, or employment: reward, remuneration, salary.”3 As the reference to “salary” or “gain” suggests, the prohibition is not limited to outright gifts, but includes payments for services rendered or profit from ordinary business transactions.

What does this mean for Donald Trump? The extent of his business, the Trump Organization, is murky, since it is privately held and Trump has been extremely reluctant to divulge details. But public records establish that his organization is involved in deals and contracts around the globe. Many of those ventures stand to gain from the actions of foreign governments or their agents—including investments involving foreign state-owned companies, government contracts or permits, lease agreements, or even overnight stays or events held at Trump hotels, golf courses, or other properties.

Trump doesn’t care. Apparently, the Republican majority in the Congress doesn’t care either. Once the party of the Constitution, once the party that praised the “original intent” of the Constitution, the party doesn’t care what Trump does, as long as he keeps them in power.

That is why we have to hold them accountable in 2018 and 2020 for this man’s behavior and his infidelity to our laws and Constitution.