“House Approves Post-Trump Curbs on Presidential Power”

The House passed this major bill seeking to prevent various Trump-era presidential abuses from recurring. From the NYT:

The House on Thursday passed a sweeping package of constraints on presidential power, which Democrats framed as a response to Donald J. Trump’s norm-busting presidency and Republicans unanimously opposed for the same reason. . . .

The legislation would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, which Mr. Trump refused to do.

The act would also strengthen the Constitution’s previously obscure ban on presidents taking emoluments, or payments, by extending anticorruption prohibition to commercial transactions. Mr. Trump’s refusal to divest from his hotels raised the question of whether lobbyists and other governments that began paying for numerous rooms at Trump resorts — and sometimes not using them — were trying to purchase his favor.

The bill would also require campaigns to report any offers of foreign assistance to the F.B.I. — a proposal that resonates with episodes unearthed in the Russia investigation, such as when Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials met at Trump Tower with Russians they were told had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

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