In defending the gift of a super luxury jumbo jet he’s preparing to receive from the royal family of Qatar to use as Air Force One, President Donald Trump described it as a brilliant deal. Not for the American people, it isn’t.
The Boeing 747-8 jet is so lavish it is estimated to be worth around $400 million, and Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School and an MSNBC columnist, has said that “a gift of this size from a foreign government is unprecedented in our nation’s history.” Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the U.S., said in a statement that the deal is not final, as “the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments” of the two countries’ defense departments.
Contrary to Trump’s insinuation that this is actually good for Americans, by accepting the luxe jet he’d be taking the American public for a ride.
After Democrats and some Republicans objected to the planned transfer of the “flying palace” as unconstitutional and corrupt, not to mention needing costly retrofitting, Trump suggested Democrats ought to be in awe of his deal-making abilities. The real offense, he said, would be paying for the plane.
“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.”
Contrary to Trump’s insinuation that this is actually good for Americans, by accepting the luxe jet he’d be taking the American public for a ride. The Constitution’s emoluments clause prohibits public officeholders from receiving gifts from foreign states without consent from Congress. There’s a simple reason for that: Those countries have their own interests that are separate from, and often at odds with, the interests of the American public. By accepting the jet, Trump would be accepting a favor that could raise the potential for a reciprocal act that serves the interests of Qatar instead of the U.S.
“There is no question that any court that got to the merits would find a violation of the foreign emoluments clause,” Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest watchdog, told me.
ABC News, citing sources familiar with the plan, reported that “Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s top White House lawyer David Warrington concluded it would be ‘legally permissible’ for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump’s presidential library before the end of his term.” (It’s worth noting, as my colleague Steve Benen pointed out, that Bondi “used to work as a registered lobbyist for foreign clients, including the government of Qatar.”)
But Hauser argued that its eventual donation to the library — where it appears plausible that Trump and his family could continue to use the aircraft after his term ends — makes it no less of a violation of the emoluments clause. “You absolutely cannot use the existence of a nonprofit organization as a shield against political corruption,” Hauser said. “You can be corrupt on behalf of a charity.”
Think about it this way: Even if you re-gift a gift, it doesn’t change the fact that you received a gift. That applies even if Trump doesn’t use the jet after exiting the White House. Of course the premise for this gift is to replace the aging aircraft in the Air Force One fleet with an impressive new jet, as Boeing’s contract to replace them has been delayed and plagued by cost issues. Avoiding conflict of interest matters beyond the corrupt back-scratching scenarios that they can set in motion. They also help maintain citizen trust in the government. A president who can only think of human interactions — including governance — as a series of private zero-sum transactions may not care about, or even understand, that. It doesn’t matter whether Trump agreed to a specific quid pro quo behind closed doors. A free jumbo jet for Air Force One is a big favor — and a hugely tangible and personal one at that. There would be no way to extricate that from the rapport between the White House and Qatar going forward — it would be baked in as part of the bartering capital Qatar has with Trump in future instances when discussing everything from policy on Iran to Israel to natural gas deals. Moreover, other countries around the world will observe this and surmise that U.S. policy may be sold to the highest bidder. Subscribe to the Project 47 newsletter to receive weekly updates on and expert insight into the key issues and figures defining Trump’s second term.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter by clicking the link at the top of this bio. 
