All the problems with Trump's Qatari jet

The luxury jet that the Qatari royal family gifted to President Donald Trump last summer has been problematic for him from the start.

Trump said at the time that he would be a “stupid person” not to take “a free plane.”

But the arrangement has raised security, ethical and even constitutional questions — none of which have been resolved.

“The fact that any entity — in this case, a foreign government no less — provides an expensive gift for the president to use while in office raises a red flag," said Meredith McGehee, a government ethics expert who formerly led the bipartisan political reform group Issue One.

More concerns have been raised since Trump flew on the jet to a NATO meeting in Turkey this month, then didn’t return home on it. He suggested Iran could have attacked it.

This week, Trump said the jet will be “maxed out” over the next month but did not give specifics. Reporting about security concerns surrounding the plane might have prompted the aggressive effort to subpoena New York Times reporters, which has raised alarms about press freedom.

Here’s what’s going on with the Qatari jet gifted to Trump.

Even members of Trump’s party balked at the president using a Middle Eastern-made plane for Air Force One, which is supposed to serve as both a secure plane for the president’s travel and essentially a flying Oval Office where the president can get a hold of pretty much anyone.

Current and former U.S. officials told The Washington Post last year that retrofitting a foreign jet built for royals to strict U.S. military standards would probably take years and cost billions of dollars. In other words, it would be impossible to fly before Trump left office.

A year after he accepted it, Trump flew in it to Turkey this month; it still featured the cream-and-tan leather seating designed for the Qatari royal family. Trump denied that security concerns were why he didn’t fly back on it.

A hallmark of Trump’s second administration is his willingness to accept donations for his projects from billionaires and corporations with business before the government.

Good-governance experts say the Qatari jet raises quid-pro-quo concerns, as well.

Ironically, that Trump accepts such gifts out in the open can insulate him from corruption allegations, said Kedric Payne, who leads the ethics program at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan group that favors stricter campaign finance regulation. “The president doesn’t seem to be trying to cover up anything,” Payne said.

He cited the Qatari jet as example No. 1: “Trump said, ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I take it?’” Payne said. “And so everyone was fully aware of it, and it didn’t seem to be as big of a problem as it was for Bob Menendez, who took a free Mercedes and bars of gold but didn’t do it out in the open.” (The former senator from New Jersey was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year in a corruption case.)

McGehee said the gifting of the plane is comparable to a corporation giving the president free computers or free food “or free anything.”

“That would appropriately be seen as an unethical attempt to curry favor with a powerful government official,” she said. “And it would further tilt a system more in favor of moneyed special interests, which already have many ways to exploit a system that benefits who can afford to pay to play.”

The Constitution says that no president can accept a gift from a foreigner or foreign nation without approval from Congress.

The emoluments clause was an obscure part of the Constitution until Trump’s first term, during which he fended off lawsuits that alleged he was violating it as foreign governments spent millions staying at or renting spaces in Trump-owned properties.

Trump pushed back against similar criticisms about the plane by saying that it’s technically the property of the military, not his, and that he intended to use the plane for a “couple of years” while his administration waits for a pair of Boeing planes, which are over budget, to be completed. But, after leaving office, Trump plans to display the plane at his presidential library, lending fuel to critics’ arguments that he’s violating the Constitution.

The $400 million jet may just scratch the surface on the gifts Trump may be receiving from foreign nations, say some ethics experts.

Trump has also made billions in cryptocurrency, which opens up an avenue for foreign governments to gift him literal wealth.

“Saudi Arabia can only buy so many hotel rooms,” said Jordan Libowitz of the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “But a sovereign wealth fund can just throw hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s crypto account and immediately raise his net worth. The scale of what they’re able to do has very much changed.”

Amber Phillips writes The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a quick analysis of the day’s biggest political news. Send her an email here, or ask a question that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.