Shoemaker leads Republicans chastising attorney general

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, has sued the federal government over the Trump administration's travel ban as well as foreign payments made to Trump businesses, arguing they violate the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

On Monday, Maryland Del. Haven Shoemaker, R-District 5, and 35 of his House and Senate colleagues — all Republicans — asked Frosh to dial it back. In a letter addressed to Frosh and sent to the media, Shoemaker and his colleagues questioned the legal merits of the lawsuits and asked Frosh to consider deferring to Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan before taking further legal action.

"Every week, sometimes twice a week it seems, the attorney general is having some kind of press conference touting his latest and greatest lawsuit against the Trump administration," Shoemaker said in an interview. "He is tilting at political windmills and grandstanding for the benefit of folks in Montgomery County."

Prior to February, it was the Maryland General Assembly, which is currently controlled by Democrats in both the Senate and the House of Delegates, and the governor who decided when the state could sue the federal government, a state of affairs Maryland shared with eight other states.

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