By Sen. Richard Blumenthal

For The Hartford Courant

No president is above the law. Yet, each day since taking office, Donald Trump has repeatedly and flagrantly violated our Constitution. He has thumbed his nose at its plain text, and in doing so, thumbed his nose at the American people as well.

Last Friday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled in favor of nearly 200 members of Congress seeking to hold President Trump accountable for gross violations of the U.S. Constitution. This ruling in Blumenthal v. Trump was a bombshell and a triumph for the rule of law.

Specifically, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan held that members of Congress have standing to sue the president for violations of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. What does that mean, and why does that matter to the American public?

The foreign emoluments clause is our Constitution’s chief anti-corruption provision. It requires the president to first seek and obtain the affirmative consent of Congress before accepting any profit, advantage or benefit —an emolument —from a foreign government. The Framers wrote the emoluments clause and made it central to our Constitution because of their fear that this country could be corrupted.

They could not have foreseen Russian cyberattacks. But they could foresee potential Russian influence, or other foreign interference, corrupting our officials through payments and benefits and advantages. They feared that officials would put self-interest above national interest.

So the Framers gave Congress a unique role: The right and responsibility of consent. The Constitution gives Congress the power to review any benefits the president wants to receive from foreign governments and either give or withhold its consent. But we cannot consent to what we don’t know. By accepting benefits from foreign governments without first obtaining the affirmative consent of Congress, Trump is preventing Congress from doing its job.

That is why Judge Sullivan last Friday rightly decided we have standing to sue President Trump. This was a milestone victory. Next, the judge will consider whether the foreign benefits and payments routinely accepted by the president without the consent of Congress fall within the prohibition on federal officials accepting emoluments without congressional consent that the Framers enshrined in our national charter.

If the judge concludes that they do, this could eventually mean exposing in court the wide array of foreign government benefits President Trump has been accepting since taking office. And while this is not the purpose of the lawsuit, this could lead to disclosure of the president’s tax returns and financial records, which he has fought for years to conceal from the American public.

Because of the nature of our challenge —brought by members of Congress who have a specifically defined Constitutional role here —if we are successful in making our case, then the court will be able to hold the president accountable for the full range of foreign government benefits he is accepting. That includes his Washington, D.C., hotel where foreign dignitaries sleep and dine to ingratiate themselves with the president —without question. But that also extends to benefits, leases and deals of enormous value spanning at least 20 countries. They include leases held by a Chinese government bank and the Saudi government as commercial tenants of Trump’s vast empire. They include valuable trademarks granted by China and other governments. They also include foreign government benefits connected with the Trump golf courses, management companies, lucrative licensing deals, permits and property rights spanning the globe. And those are merely the most egregious examples we are aware of —there are certainly far more still concealed from Congress and the American public.

And we will ask that the court enforce the Constitution. We will ask the court to tell the president that he must either relinquish his vast holdings —500 separate entities, as part of a myriad of holding companies, in at least 20 countries around the world —or he must receive congressional approval to retain the foreign benefits funneled to and through them.

Why will we do this? We will do this to ensure that this president is minding the people’s business, not his own. Because no president is above the law.

Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, is Connecticut’s senior U.S. senator.