"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, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8
The above clause of the US Constitution is known as the Emoluments Clause, and it was included out of a concern that members of English royalty may try to influence American politics through bribes or royal titles. Just how it applies to the modern American political scene is debatable, although I doubt few of our citizens would argue with the basic notion that our politicians shouldn't take bribes from foreigners. Which brings us to President-elect Donald Trump; he will be groundbreaking in his presidency not only because of his complete lack of political or military experience, but also because he will be the first to ever to run a massive, multi million (perhaps billion) dollar global corporation just before entering office. While he has stated that he will hand over his corporation to his children once he is in office, this will hardly remove any potential conflicts of interest that may arise.
Indeed, even before taking office, there are reports of him receiving a congratulatory phone call from the prime minister of Argentina and turning it into a plea for restrictions to lifted on a building his company is working on there. He also has interests in India that he may see advanced through his ascendancy to the White House. And the Secret Service may be renting a floor in his New York Trump Tower building, at a cost of over a million dollars a year (if that happens, that's our tax dollars going to a standing president, folks!). And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. It really appears that Trump plans to use the office of the Presidency to advance his own economic interests first and to implement policies second (unless those polices also advance his interests). Is this all constitutional? Probably not, but given that it would take a Republican majority congress to do something about it, there may be no move to rebuke or restrict him. But as long as he uses his office like a cash machine, there may come a time when public outcry causes congress to act.
And then we need to consider the general temperament of the man we somehow elected president; during the campaign, Trump advisors often admitted that he would listen to their advice for a short time, before impulsively doing his own thing, like sending insulting tweets at three in the morning. This is bad enough when one is a candidate, but when you're president? Quite frankly, he has the maturity level and attention span of a toddler, combine that with his godlike sense of self importance and lack of experience in politics, and it is entirely possible that this man may blunder into some kind of criminal corruption or international crisis without even knowing it.
What am I saying? I'm saying that some kind of impeachment is possible in the next four years. Understand, I'm not just predicting this out of angry sour grapes or my personal intense dislike of the man, I'm just honestly looking at him through media reports on his manner and disposition and finding that he is probably a psychopath, with inflated self esteem and an inability to care about any other person in the world. Meaning that he very well may stumble into something impeachable as he childishly tries to increase his own wealth and importance, and don't forget that many Republicans in congress did not support his campaign and would rather have his VP Mike Pence as president than him, and we may see our country's desire to have a inexperienced, immature, sexist, bigoted, bullying, demagogic, hate filled, narcissistic leader turn out to be short lived. Boy, I sure hope so...
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