The luxury jet Donald Trump is set to receive from Qatar wouldn’t just be a massive ethics violation—“foreign influence with extra legroom,” as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quipped Sunday. It comes with dangerous implications for national security. “Think of what would’ve happened in World War II if the [German and Italian governments] were able to give lavish gifts to American politicians,” as Richard Painter, who served as ethics czar in George W. Bush’s White House, put it to me Monday. “It’s a very dangerous situation.”
ABC News reported Sunday that Trump, who toured the plane in February, planned to accept a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s royal family for use as Air Force One; it would then be transferred to Trump’s presidential library foundation, allowing him to use it personally when he leaves office. All told, the estimated $400 million jet, which has been described as the “flying palace,” would represent perhaps the largest ever gift to the US from a foreign government. It comes as Trump’s family business deepens its ties to the Middle East, and as Trump visits the region this week for the first international trip of his second term.
Trump defended the Qatar gift Sunday evening, claiming it was a “very public and transparent transaction.” But the lavish gift raises the specter of a foreign government buying influence over the US—an especially concerning prospect in this instance, given Qatar’s record of human rights abuses and financial support for Hamas. Accepting a luxury jet from “any country is unconstitutional,” Painter said. “But this country has literally supported a terrorist organization.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have vowed to fight the transaction. On Sunday, Congressman Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, called on Trump to seek congressional approval, as required by the Constitution. “A gift you can use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift (and a grift),” Raskin wrote. New York Representative Ritchie Torres went even further, calling for an investigation into the “flying grift,” in a letter to the comptroller general of the United States Government Accountability Office, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, and the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense. “The American presidency is not a personal inheritance. It does not exist to enrich Donald Trump,” Torres wrote. “It belongs to ‘We the People.’ If we fail to draw the line here, there may soon be no line left to draw.” And Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy vowed to block weapons sales to any country doing personal business with Trump, citing the United Arab Emirates’ investment in Trump’s crypto endeavor and the Qatari plane gift as “unacceptable corruption of our foreign policy.”
But it remains to be seen if Democrats, who hold the minority in the House and Senate, can take concrete steps to block the move without GOP support. Trump dismissed his critics in a Sunday night social media post as “World Class Losers,” and Republicans, to this point, have mainly refused to exert their legislative authority to meaningfully check Trump’s power. Trump’s attorney general—Pam Bondi, who has her own ties to Qatar—has reportedly greenlit the transaction as “legally permissible.” But what is clear is that not everyone in Trump’s inner circle is on board: “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true,” posted Laura Loomer, the right-wing conspiracy theorist who has exerted considerable influence over Trump. “And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump.”
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