Trump ordered to pay legal fees after losing court battle over his Scottish golf course

Authored by thinkprogress.org and submitted by idarknight
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President Donald Trump will have to pay the Scottish government’s legal fees after a lengthy court dispute over a wind power development project near his golf resort that ended in a victory for Scotland in 2015.

Judges in Scotland ruled last week that the Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd must pay the legal costs of the court case, which began when Trump sued the government while he was running for president.

The president sought to stop the construction of 11 wind turbines on land next to his golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, arguing that the project would be esthetically unappealing.

The case eventually made its way to the U.K. Supreme Court in 2015, which rejected Trump’s case, allowing the Scottish government to move ahead with the project.

Trump appeared to be referencing the case on Saturday — while breaking the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which forbids a president from using the position and power of the office for personal financial gain — when he quote-tweeted a photo shared by the Trump Organization of his Aberdeen golf course.

“Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world,” he said. “Also, furthers U.K. relationship!”

Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers U.K. relationship! https://t.co/3xTzzJH6Iq — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2019

The Atlantic’s David Frum pointed out on Twitter Sunday morning that Trump seemed to be “threatening the UK government with harm to the US-UK relationship if he is forced to pay the Scottish government’s legal costs in litigation Trump started & lost.”

Ethics experts and watchdogs also criticized Trump’s tweet. Former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics said Saturday, “This is Trump’s most explicit commingling of personal interests and public office to date.”

This is Trump’s most explicit commingling of personal interests and public office to date. This is the tone from the top that leads his appointees to violate ethics rules. This is shameless, corrupt and repugnant presidential profiteering. This is an invitation to graft. https://t.co/3Gce7RGEYW — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) March 2, 2019

The Citizen for Ethics organization, which currently has an ongoing lawsuit against Trump for illegally receiving payments from foreign governments said on Twitter that the “president is using an official statement as an ad for his business…”

-SaC on March 4th, 2019 at 02:29 UTC »

Ever seen the video of him trying to argue against the wind farms to a Scottish Parliamentary committee where he declares his very existence to be enough evidence of his expertise in tourism?

The video is on this page.

 

Transcript from the committee appeal against the wind farms video:-

Trump: I am an expert on tourism. If you...dot your landscape with these horrible, horrible structures, you will do tremendous damage-

Member Of Scottish Parliament (MSP): (interrupting) My question is, where is the clinical evidence - not an opinion, an empirical assessment; where is your clinical evidence?

Trump: Well, first of all, I am the evidence. I think I'm more of an expert-

(laughter from those in the room)

Trump: - I...you know what, I think I'm a lot more of an expert than the people you'd like me to hire, who are doing it to make a paycheck-

MSP: -If you won't-

Trump: -But I am an expert in tourism.

 

The Scottish Parliament was not persuaded. Neither were the courts. In 2015 the UK Supreme Court rejected his attempts to block the wind development.

 

 

EDIT: Decided to amalgamate a few sources here on his opposition to wind energy from 2012 to now:

 

Three claims from one rally debunked here - namely:

Living near wind turbines is enough to make someone go crazy over a couple of years

Wind turbines each kill ‘thousands’ of birds per year

No wind means no power

 

Direct quote from the rally in Indiana:

Trump, Aug. 30:

’Clean power, right? They want to have windmills all over the place, right? When the wind doesn’t blow, what do we do? Uh, we got problems. When there’s thousands of birds laying at the base of the windmill, what do we do? Isn’t that amazing? The environmentalists, “We like windmills.” Oh, really? What about the thousands of birds they’re killing? Try going to the bottom of a windmill someday. It’s not a pretty picture. But, really, when the wind doesn’t blow, you got problems. If your house is staring at a windmill, not good. When you hear that noise going round and round and round, and you’re living with it, and then you go crazy after a couple of years, not good. And the environmentalists say, oh, isn’t it wonderful?’

 

The ‘no wind no power’ theory is contradicted by his own energy department:

But Trump’s own Department of Energy explains on its website that “power grid operators have always had to deal with variability,” noting that traditional forms of energy generation, which include coal, are also susceptible to breaks in service that the grid must accommodate. Usually, unless there are failures in multiple places, or extremely high demands — or both at once — grid operators can successfully divert energy to where it is needed most and avoid blackouts.

The DOE website continues, “Adding variable renewable power to the grid does not inherently change how this process of balancing electricity supply and demand works. Studies have shown that the grid can accommodate large penetrations of variable renewable power without sacrificing reliability, and without the need for ‘backup’ generation.”

 

From a rally in West Virginia:

[Coal is] a tremendous form of energy in the sense that in a military way — think of it — coal is indestructible.

You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills. You know, the wind wheels, [mimics windmill noise, mimes shooting gun] “Bing!” That’s the end of that one. If the birds don’t kill it first. The birds could kill it first. They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it’s like a killing field, the birds.

But uh, you know, that’s what they were going to, they were going to windmills. And you know, don’t worry about wind, when the wind doesn’t blow, I said, “What happens when the wind doesn’t blow?” Well, then we have a problem. Okay good. They were putting him in areas where they didn’t have much wind, too. And it’s a subsidary [sic] — you need subsidy for windmills. You need subsidy. Who wants to have energy where you need subsidy? So, uh, the coal is doing great.

Here’s a video of this.

 

Back in 2012, he was tweeting wondering ‘How many bald eagles did wind turbines kill today? They are an environmental & aesthetic disaster.

 

After being elected, he was interviewed by the New York Times in which he made a number of interesting (and false) claims:-

Trump: Oh, I see. I might have brought it up. But not having to do with me, just I mean the wind is a very deceiving thing. First of all, we don’t make the windmills in the United States. They’re made in Germany and Japan.

FACTCHECK: His comment on domestic wind turbine manufacturing is false.

Few wind turbines are shipped globally because they are so bulky. More than than 21,000 US factory workers make a majority of US wind farm content domestically.

Trump: They’re made out of massive amounts of steel, which goes into the atmosphere, whether it’s in our country or not, it goes into the atmosphere.

FACTCHECK: Steel is not emitted into the atmosphere during component manufacture or by wind projects.

There are the usual emissions associated with any heavy manufacturing process, but making wind turbine components is not especially dirty.

Trump's apparent concern for emissions from wind turbine manufacture is impossible to reconcile with his enthusiasm for the coal industry and his disdain for climate change science.

Trump: The windmills kill birds and the windmills need massive subsidies. In other words, we’re subsidising wind mills all over this country. I mean, for the most part they don’t work. I don’t think they work at all without subsidy, and that bothers me, and they kill all the birds.

FACTCHECK: Wind turbines kill fewer birds than do cats, buildings or the fossil fuel industry.

Trump: You go to a windmill, you know in California they have the, what is it? The golden eagle? And they’re like, if you shoot a golden eagle, they go to jail for five years and yet they kill them by, they actually have to get permits that they’re only allowed to kill 30 or something in one year.

FACTCHECK: Trump’s claim about the penalty shooting a golden eagle is false. A first penalty is a maximum fine of $5,000 or one-year imprisonment.

His comment that wind project operators can legally kill 30 eagles yearly is also false.

Trump: The windmills are devastating to the bird population. OK, with that being said, there’s a place for them. But they do need subsidy. So, if I talk negatively. I’ve been saying the same thing for years about you know, the wind industry. I wouldn’t want to subsidise it.

FACTCHECK: Trump cannot seem to keep a consistant view on subsidies. During a November 2015 campaign stop in Newton, Iowa, Trump was asked for his stance on the wind Production Tax Credit.

He responded: "I’m fine with it. Any form of energy — we’ve got to get away from the Middle East….. Wind is a very expensive form of energy, and it’s got problems of storage, and lots of other things. But, I want to see whatever you can do — ethanol, I’m totally in favour … Wind will need subsidies. It’s going to have to have subsidies."

Trump: Some environmentalists agree with me very much because of all of the things I just said, including the birds, and some don’t.

FACTCHECK: We haven't found a major national environmental organisation that agrees with him.

Trump: But it’s hard to explain. I don’t care about anything having to do with anything having to do with anything other than the country.

FACTCHECK: Yes, it does appear hard to explain.

pperca on March 4th, 2019 at 00:37 UTC »

Good luck collecting. Trump is notorious for not paying his bills.

swanky_serpentine on March 4th, 2019 at 00:30 UTC »

Don't worry, he's got a charity with funds for this kind of thing.