Seth Barrett Tillman (National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUI Maynooth) – Faculty of Law) has posted Matters of Debate-The Foreign Emoluments Clause Reached Only Appointed Officers (2016; updated 2025) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In 1966, Congress enacted the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, 5 U.S.C. § 7342. The 1966 Act provides elected and appointed officials and employees of the United States government with concrete guidance in regard to the receipt of gifts from foreign governments. Although there have been a few exceptional cases, primarily relating to President Obama’s Nobel Prize and federal employees’ working for foreign government universities, in general, over the last half century, there has been little need for the judiciary or others to expound on the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause; there has been little need because in most cases the propriety of foreign gifts is now tested by a detailed, modern federal statute, rather than by the more than 200-year-old and obscure Foreign Emoluments Clause.