IV 
114TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 178 
Clarifying any potential misunderstanding as to whether actions taken by 
President-elect Donald Trump constitute a violation of the Emoluments 
Clause, and calling on President-elect Trump to divest his interest in, 
and sever his relationship to, the Trump Organization. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 1, 2016 
Mr. WELCH submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred 
to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Clarifying any potential misunderstanding as to whether ac-
tions taken by President-elect Donald Trump constitute 
a violation of the Emoluments Clause, and calling on 
President-elect Trump to divest his interest in, and sever 
his relationship to, the Trump Organization. 
Whereas article I, section 9, clause 8 of the United States 
Constitution (commonly known as the ‘‘Emoluments 
Clause’’) declares, ‘‘No title of Nobility shall be granted 
by the United States: And no Person holding any Office 
of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent 
of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Of-
fice, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, 
Prince, or foreign State.’’; 
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•HCON 178 IH 
Whereas, according to the remarks of Governor Edmund 
Randolph at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the 
Emoluments Clause ‘‘was thought proper, in order to ex-
clude corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any 
one in office from receiving or holding any emoluments 
from foreign states’’; 
Whereas the issue of foreign corruption greatly concerned the 
Founding Fathers of the United States, such that Alex-
ander Hamilton in Federalist No. 22 wrote, ‘‘In repub-
lics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, 
by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of 
great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations 
for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds ani-
mated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to ex-
ceed the proportion of interest they have in the common 
stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. Hence 
it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying 
examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in re-
publican governments.’’; 
Whereas the President of the United States is the head of 
the executive branch of the Federal Government and is 
expected to have undivided loyalty to the United States, 
and clearly occupies an ‘‘office of profit or trust’’ within 
the meaning of article I, section 9, clause 8 of the Con-
stitution, according to the Office of Legal Counsel of the 
Department of Justice; 
Whereas the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of 
Justice opined in 2009 that corporations owned or con-
trolled by a foreign government are presumptively foreign 
states under the Emoluments Clause; 
Whereas President-elect Donald J. Trump has a business 
network, the Trump Organization, that has financial in-
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•HCON 178 IH 
terests around the world and negotiates and concludes 
transactions with foreign states and entities that are ex-
tensions of foreign states; 
Whereas Michael Cohen, an attorney for Donald J. Trump 
and the Trump Organization, has stated that the Trump 
Organization would be placed into a ‘‘blind trust’’ man-
aged by Donald Trump’s children, Donald Trump, Jr., 
Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump; 
Whereas the very nature of a ‘‘blind trust’’ is such that the 
official will have no control over, will receive no commu-
nications about, and will have no knowledge of the iden-
tity of the specific assets held in the trust, and that the 
manager of the trust is independent of the owner, and as 
such the arrangement proposed by Mr. Cohen is not a 
blind trust; 
Whereas Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Wil-
liam J. Clinton, and George W. Bush have set the prece-
dent of using true blind trusts, in which their holdings 
were liquidated and placed in new investments unknown 
to them by an independent trustee who managed them 
free of familial bias; 
Whereas the intermingling of the business of the Trump Or-
ganization and the work of government has the potential 
to constitute the foreign corruption so feared by the 
Founding Fathers and betray the trust of America’s citi-
zens; 
Whereas the intent of this resolution is to prevent any poten-
tial misunderstanding or crisis with regards to whether 
the actions of Donald J. Trump as President of the 
United States will violate the Emoluments Clause of the 
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•HCON 178 IH 
Constitution, Federal law, or fundamental principles of 
ethics; and 
Whereas Congress has an institutional, constitutional obliga-
tion to ensure that the President of the United States 
does not violate the Emoluments Clause and is dis-
charging the obligations of office based on the national 
interest, not based on personal interest: Now, therefore, 
be it 
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
concurring), That Congress— 
(1) calls upon President-elect Donald J. Trump 
to follow the precedent established by prior presi-
dents and convert his assets to simple, conflict-free 
holdings, adopt blind trusts managed by an inde-
pendent trustee with no relationship to Donald J. 
Trump or his businesses, or take other equivalent 
measures, in order to ensure compliance with the 
Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitu-
tion; 
(2) calls upon President-elect Donald J. Trump 
not to use the powers or opportunities of his position 
as President-elect or President of the United States 
for any purpose related to the Trump Organization; 
and 
(3) regards, in the absence of such actions out-
lined in paragraph (1) or specific authorization by 
Congress, dealings that Donald J. Trump, as Presi-
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•HCON 178 IH 
dent of the United States, may have through his 
companies with foreign governments or entities 
owned or controlled by foreign governments as po-
tential violations of the Emoluments Clause. 
Æ 
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