Scholars’ Circle – Emolument Clause & Trump Qatar gifts ; The harm of microplastics – May 25, 2025

What exactly an emolument? Is the airplane gift from Qatar to President Trump an emolument? Is it evidence of corruption? And has the Supreme Court continued to enable corruption? Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 26mins. ]

• Clark D. Cunningham is Lee Byrd’s Chair in Law and Ethics at Georgia State University College of Law. He is the author of Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of Emoluments. In the Constitution, and has co-authored several amicus briefs on the Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of “Emolument” in the Constitution.”Emolument” in the Constitution.


• Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is the Professor of Law at Stetson Law School. She’s the author of The Stakes of the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corruption Rulings in the Age of Trump. And the very recent publication, Corporatocracy how to protect democracy from dark money And corrupt politicians.

From the arctic to the depths of the oceans, microplastics are wreaking havoc, posing health threats to human health, animals life & the ecosystems on which we all rely. How did we get here and what can we do? Hosted by Maria Armoudian. [ dur: 26mins. ]

• Samantha Ladewig is Research Fellow at University of Auckland, NZ. She is the co-author of Benthic ecosystem function responses to plasticizer content in polyester and PVC .


• Nathalie Gontard – Research Director at INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment). She is the author of Recognizing the long-term impacts of plastic particles for preventing distortion in decision-making.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, and Sudd Dongre.