Whereas article 1, section 9, clause 8 of the United States Constitution states: no person holding any office of profit or trust … shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, for any king, prince, or foreign state ; Whereas in Federalist No. 22 (Alexander Hamilton) it is said, One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption ; Whereas the delegates to the Constitutional Convention specifically designed the Emoluments Clause as an antidote to potentially corrupting foreign practices of a kind that the Framers had observed during the period of the Confederation; Whereas the word emoluments means profit, salary, fees, or compensation which would include direct payment as well as other benefits including extension of credit, forgiveness of debt, or the granting of rights of pecuniary value; Whereas in 2009, the Office of Legal Counsel clarified that corporations owned or controlled by foreign governments presumptively qualify as foreign States under the Foreign Emoluments Clause; Whereas against the advice of ethics attorneys and the Office of Government Ethics, the President has refused to divest his ownership stake in his businesses; Whereas the then-Director of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics said that the President’s transfer of his business holdings to a trust managed by family members is meaningless and does not meet the standards that … every president in the past four decades has met ; Whereas Congress has previously given its consent for sitting presidents to accept foreign emoluments, after being given the opportunity to review the gift; Whereas Congress can only give its consent for emoluments received by a president if the president provides information on the emoluments he has received from foreign sources, including the amount, the source, and the circumstances under which the emolument was received