The Qatar Airplane Challenge: The White House and the Case of a Trump Presidential Flying from the Middle East to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
The senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that Qatar has offered to donate a plane to the Department of Defense, but said the gift will not be presented nor accepted this week while in Qatar.
The offer, which was first reported by ABC News, comes on the eve of Trump’s visit to the Middle East. The president is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump said the plane is not a gift to him, but to the Department of Defense. He added that it will be decommissioned after his term for his presidential library, and that he will not use it after leaving office.
“I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane,’ ” Trump said. I thought it was a great gesture.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, said that any “gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws.”
It was in his first term that Trump struck a deal with Boeing to supply Air Force One. Trump agreed to pay $3.9 billion for two custom-made airplanes. The president is frustrated by the time it is taking for the manufacturer to deliver the aircraft.
In the first term of Trump’s administration, CREW sued him, arguing that he was getting cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests, and events at his hotels, buildings, and valuable real estate deals abroad. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, but was dismissed as moot after he left office in 2021.
“We have never seen something on this level before, and especially when you add in his government or his personal business in the country, it raises significant red flags,” he says.
Why Does President Trump Accept Qatar’s Luxury Flight? A Critique of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Inspector General, and the Office of Government Ethics
Presidents typically receive gifts like cufflinks and bottles of wine, Libowitz says, and are required to turn such gifts over to the U.S. government — generally the National Archives — unless they pay fair market value to keep them.
“He is attempting to make money there, and that makes us very uncomfortable,” Libowitz says. Is America’s best interest being served, or is it the best interests of the Trump Organization?
The Trump Organization — of which Trump handed formal control to his sons in 2017 — did not pledge to avoid making deals with private companies abroad during his second term, unlike his first. In late April, the company announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar.
According to a post on X, Congress must consent to Donald Trump accepting the gift due to the language of the Foreign Emoluments Clause.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote a letter asking the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the acting Department of Defense inspector general and the Office of Government Ethics to conduct an immediate review.
“In real time, the American people are watching something that can only be called a ‘flying grift’,” he wrote. There could be no line left to draw if we don’t draw the line here.
Torres is asking them to issue a formal advisory opinion on whether the gift violates federal ethics regulations, and to recommend policy reforms “to prevent the conversion of foreign gifts into private property” by any president.
But Briffault says the only way Congress can prevent the gift — or reprimand Trump afterward — is by impeaching him, which seems unlikely given Republicans’ control of both chambers.
Briffault says Trump has ignored many of the existing guardrails on the presidency — from firing over a dozen inspectors general of federal agencies to ousting the head of the Office of Government Ethics.
Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, blasted the plans as being “premium foreign influence with extra legroom.”
Source: Ethics experts worry about the implications of Trump accepting Qatar’s luxury plane
The transfer of Ronald Reagan’s plane to the Department of Defense is still under review, Al-Ansari told the Associated Press
Ronald Reagan, who was President of the United States from 1981 to 1983, has a plane at his presidential library in California. The Associated Press reported in March that Trump’s team was scouting Florida locations for a potential presidential library.
Ali Al-Ansari, the media attache to the U.S., told NPR on Monday that the possible transfer of the aircraft from the Ministry of Defense to the Department of Defense remains under review.