A new 57-page complaint landed in the Southern District of Florida last week, and it's an interesting one.
The case is Sistrunk Seeds Inc. v. Trump, Case No. 1:26-cv-23365, filed May 13 by Jerry Greenberg, Dan Gelber, and Shane Grannum of Gelber Schachter & Greenberg and the Constitutional Accountability Center. The plaintiffs are two Downtown Miami condo owners, a Miami Dade College student, and a nonprofit urban farm co-founded by historian Dr. Marvin Dunn.
The claim: Florida violated the Domestic Emoluments Clause by gifting a 2.63-acre waterfront parcel in Downtown Miami — previously owned by MDC — to President Trump's library foundation. For free. The land sits next to the Freedom Tower. Experts say it's worth north of $300 million. The county appraiser says $67 million. Either way, it went for $0.
The defendants include the President (official capacity), the Trump Library Foundation, Governor DeSantis, AG Uthmeier, CFO Ingoglia, Commissioner Simpson, the Florida Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, and the entire MDC Board.
The constitutional hook is Article II, § 1, cl. 7, which says the President "shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." Plaintiffs argue the land transfer is a textbook state gift to a sitting president in violation of that clause.
The complaint cites a bunch of Trump's own words, including: "I don't believe in building libraries or museums... it's most likely going to be a hotel." The case is assigned to Judge Ruiz. Coverage from the Miami Herald, CNN, NBC News, and The Hill.
Meantime, yesterday, six days after the lawsuit was filed, U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones posted a photo of the Freedom Tower on X with the caption: "South Florida knows what this building stands for." The Freedom Tower, of course, sits directly adjacent to the MDC Parcel at the heart of this case. But the post likely has to do with the press conference that JRQ has scheduled with Todd Blanche, Ashley Moody, and James Uthmeier announcing the indictment of Raul Castro of Cuba.
3 comments:
The fact that the complaint has dozens of paragraphs attempting to establish the plaintiffs' alleged Article III standing is a strong suggestion that ... the plaintiffs lack Article III standing. Buh bye.
@8:04, maybe they don't have standing, maybe they do -- but I don't know that it's fair to fault them for addressing standing at length in the complaint. Judge Ruiz would probably love to kick it on standing grounds if he can, and not including sufficient facts that establish standing would be an easy way to open the door for that challenge
Not faulting the lawyers (who are great, by the way). But I was skeptical about standing before even reading the complaint, and the concerted effort to emphasize how the plaintiffs are allegedly being injured by the library confirmed that skepticism. Maybe I'll be proved wrong.
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