A major US city has passed a resolution calling on Congress to investigate if any of Donald Trump’s actions warrant impeachment.
Los Angeles Council member Bob Blumenfield spearheaded the move, which the council backed by 10 votes to zero.
It is alleged that Mr Trump may have breached the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the president from accepting financial benefits including monetary payments and purchase of goods and services, from a foreign power.
The clause continues to be a source of contention for the US president with critics pointing to the many properties he owns, suggesting they could create a major conflict of interest.
Barack Obama’s former chief ethics counsel Norm Eisen warned that “eventually the scandal [of conflicts] will be too much to take”.
“One never hopes for scandal but in this case the president is bringing it upon himself,” he added.
In a statement, Mr Blumenfield asserted that “everyday more alarming information comes out regarding Trump’s business dealings and brazenness about lack of transparency and conflicts of interest”.
“This resolution … is not about his anti-choice positions, or his anti-immigrant policies, or his efforts to deny millions of Americans healthcare, or his misogynistic words and deeds, or any of his positions that I find odious,” he stressed.
Mr Blumenfield said that if a foreign official or embassy hosted an event or stayed at a hotel “where the president’s name is branded from the top of the building to the chocolate on the pillow”, this could constitute a violation of the clause.
He criticised Mr Trump’s meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has previously said he “personally killed people” when he was a mayor.
Mr Blumenfield claimed the new ‘Trump Tower’ which will open in Manila will earn the president “millions of dollars in licencing fees”.
Cambridge in Massachusetts, Berkeley, Richmond and the Vermont town of Charlotte have passed similar resolutions.