When the news broke last week that Donald Trump was poised to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar, some of the relevant players made clear that the plans had not yet been finalized. In fact, a spokesperson for Qatar’s government referred to the “possible transfer” of the aircraft, adding that “no decision has been made.”
A week later, however, it’s apparently a done deal. The New York Times reported:
The United States has accepted a 747 jetliner as a gift from the government of Qatar, and the Air Force has now been asked to figure out a way to rapidly upgrade it so it can be put into use as a new Air Force One for President Trump, a Defense Department spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement, “The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations. The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”
The Times’ report added that the Defense Department “has not given an estimate of when the work on the Qatari plane might be done, even though Mr. Trump and the White House have made clear the president wants it soon, perhaps even by the end of the year.”
What the president “wants” is likely to prove irrelevant: NBC News recently reported that converting the luxury jet will “take years to complete.”
Indeed, it’s worth emphasizing that the administration’s decision to accept the Qatari “gift” doesn’t end the controversy; it starts the controversy.
Now that this plan is moving forward, the president and his White House team should prepare for a series of questions for which there are no easy answers. Where will Trump find the money to pay for this “free” plane? Why does he keep pretending that this “gift” isn’t for him personally, even after he’s publicly suggested otherwise? How does Trump intend to overcome the seemingly obvious fact that the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause still exists, and it appears to prohibit exactly this kind of arrangement? Why was Attorney General Pam Bondi involved in approving this process after having served as a paid registered lobbyist for Qatar? How does Trump plan to explain away his earlier condemnations of presidents accepting foreign gifts? Why is the president apparently indifferent to the fact that even many of his Republican allies have expressed opposition to this idea? Will Congress have any role in approving the transfer, as is required for such gestures of international generosity? As for the gambit’s many Democratic critics, the congressional minority can’t hold hearings or send subpoenas, but a group of Senate Democrats last week formally requested that the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office open an investigation into the matter, which might actually happen, and there’s a related effort to press the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office to begin scrutiny, too. This story, in other words, is just getting started. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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