A pair of plaintiffs — a nonprofit organization that stands up for restaurant workers’ rights and a woman who books banquet halls for two Washington, D.C., hotels — joined a lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by repeatedly doing business with foreign governments at his hotels and restaurants.
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC) and Jill Phaneuf were added to the case as of Tuesday, according to a spokesperson from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a D.C.-based watchdog group that initially filed the suit against Trump in federal court in January, the Washington Post reports.
The addition of ROC and Phaneuf is intended to bolster CREW’s case, who legal experts said may not have grounds to sue due to a lack of impact directly affecting the organization, according to the Post. Now, ROC and Phaneuf reportedly plan to assert that their businesses stand to lose out on foreign clients, potentially in town to gain political favor with President Trump, as direct competitors to the Trump Organization’s properties.
“It’s damage to our members, both employers’ bottom lines, and workers’ loss of income and tips,” Saru Jayaraman, ROC co-director, said.
Phaneuf said she joined the lawsuit because Trump is “taking business away from me and others with unfair business practices that violate the Constitution,” in a statement, though she declined to cite an example of when a Trump hotel had taken her business away, according to the Post.
The White House and the Trump Administration did not immediately respond to Coins2Day‘s request for comment.
