https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/01/justices-vacate-rulings-on-trump-and-emoluments/
Emoluments cases
The Supreme Court vacated the lower courts decisions in a pair of cases involving allegations that, as president, Trump received benefits from the hotels and restaurants that he owns, in violation of two anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution known as the emoluments clauses. In one case, Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit allowed a lawsuit by competitors in the hospitality industry to go forward, rejecting Trumps arguments that the competitors alleged injuries did not give them a legal right to sue. Represented by the Department of Justice, Trump filed a petition for review in September, asking the justices to hear oral argument and weigh in on whether the lawsuit could go forward. But by late December, when the petition was first distributed for the justices conference in early January, Trump had less than a month remaining in his term as president. In his reply brief, then-Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall argued that the justices should wait to act on Trumps petition until after the inauguration and then vacate the 2nd Circuits ruling with instructions to dismiss the case as moot so that it would not serve as precedent for future cases a move known as Munsingwear vacatur.
Wall made a similar argument in Trump v. District of Columbia, in which the District and Maryland also alleged violations of the emoluments clauses. After a federal district court in Maryland allowed the case to go forward, Trump asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit for an order that would require the district court either to allow an immediate appeal or to dismiss the case, but the full 4th Circuit rejected that request. Trump then went to the Supreme Court in early September, but in his reply brief, filed in late December, Wall again recommended that the justices hold the petition until it becomes moot after the inauguration, and then grant certiorari and vacate under Munsingwear. The justices agreed to both of Walls recommendations on Monday morning, wiping away the appellate courts rulings in both cases and instructing the lower courts to dismiss the lawsuits as moot.
This SCOTUS gave the plaintiff Trump exactly what he wanted: that emoluments (above) and crimes (the immunity ruling) are not prosecutable when a Republican president is in office, especially THIS one.
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