Prepare to gag.
President Donald Trump loves putting his name on everything from ties to steaks to water — and, of course, his buildings. But now the Trump Organization appears to be borrowing a brand even more powerful than the gilded Trump moniker: the presidential seal.
In recent weeks, the Trump Organization has ordered the manufacture of new tee markers for golf courses that are emblazoned with the seal of the President of the United States. Under federal law, the seal’s use is permitted only for official government business. Misuse can be a crime.
Is using it to advertise and glorify the president’s profit-making golf courses misuse or is it official government business? That’s a tough one.
Past administrations have policed usage vigilantly. In 2005 the Bush administration ordered the satirical news website The Onion to remove a replica of the seal. Grant M. Dixton, associate White House counsel, wrote in a letter to The Onionthat the seal “is not to be used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any way that suggests presidential support or endorsement.”
Oh. It’s not? Huh. Then I guess sticking them up on the president’s profit-making golf courses is definitely misuse.
Eagle Sign and Design, a metalworking and sign company with offices in New Albany, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky, said it had received an order to manufacture dozens of round, 12-inch replicas of the presidential seal to be placed next to the tee boxes at Trump golf course holes. Two tee markers are placed on the ground at the start of a hole on golf courses to indicate where golfers should stand to take their first swing.
“We made the design, and the client confirmed the design,” said Joseph E. Bates, who owns Eagle Sign, declining to say who the client was.
They share a photo of tables covered with the things.
An order form for the tee markers reviewed by ProPublica and WNYC says the customer was “Trump International.” The Facebook page for Eagle Sign and Design shows a photo of the markers in an album with the caption “Trump International Golf Course.”
Slea-zeeeee. Also apparently a crime.
Eagle Sign makes a wide array of tee markers out of bronze and aluminum, and has made other signs for Trump’s courses, according to its website. At some of Trump’s golf courses, tee markers have sported the Trump family crest, which he took from the family that originally owned Mar-a-Lago without permission and then altered by adding his own name.
Bahahahahahahahahaha he’s so classy.
Is it hard to understand why this rule exists? I don’t think so.
The “law is an expression of the idea that the government and government authority should not be used for private purpose,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University specializing in government and legal ethics said. “It would be a misuse of government authority.”
Not unlike Kellyanne Conway flogging Princess Ivanka’s merch on tv.
Comments
9 responses to “Emblazoned with the seal of the President of the United States”
I can elaborate on the photo in that article: 1) Right before a president speaks, someone puts the presidential seal on the lectern, and 2) Right after the president is done speaking, someone removes the presidential seal from the lectern.
Ohhh, good to know. Also underlines what’s so creepy about the misuse.
If it were put on the golf pegs, I could understand the impetus to whack at it.
#1, What a shame the seal can’t be applied to 45’s mouth.
From the article:
Didn’t Trump occupy his gaudy gilded garrison for a while after his election, billing the Secret Service for the rooms they had to occupy in order to carry out their duties? How was that not making commercial gain from the office?
So, not actually the Trump family crest. Yet more evidence that he’s just a thief.
Rob, he was going to use the original Trump family crest but the swastika was thought a tad obvious.
This administration is a sleaze cake filled with sleaze filling and covered with sleaze icing. And they want us to swallow it.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo helpfully offered new coats of arms for Trump and Kushner