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When sultans tried to give President Martin Van Buren lavish gifts, he did what the Constitution requires and asked Congress what to do.
Two live lions had been gifted to Van Buren by the Sultan of Morocco at the US consulate in Tangiers in 1839 and the Sultan of Oman tried to give him “horses, pearls and other things of value,” delivered by ships in 1840.
“I deem it my duty to lay the proposition before Congress for such disposition as they may think fit to make of it,” Van Buren wrote to lawmakers after explaining that he understood such gifts were against the law.
Long story short: Congress told Van Buren those gifts were not OK. The lions ultimately went to a zoo and the horses were sold, according to the Washington Post. The Van Buren pearls are in the Smithsonian.
Van Buren was pretty stupid, according to the logic of President Donald Trump, who is tired of riding around in 40-year-old jets. Trump very much wants to accept a luxury $400 million Boeing 747 from the royal family of Qatar to be used as Air Force One, which is the call sign for whatever plane is carrying the president.
“I could be a stupid person and say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t want a free plane,’” Trump told reporters on Monday. “We give free things out. We’ll take one, too.”
After Trump’s term ends, when a long-delayed brand-new set of Air Force One planes might be ready, the luxury jet would go to Trump’s presidential library.
The legal details are “still being worked out,” the White House said Monday. Qatar said that no decision has been made, and the White House insists such a gift would not influence presidential decisions.
There are multiple major problems with Trump’s plan.
If Trump were to accept a luxury jet, it would seem to violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which is pretty clear that a president must ask Congress for permission.
Here’s that language from the Constitution:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
The president has challenged the Constitution in multiple ways since taking office, and in this case, he can look to the gift of additional immunity the Supreme Court granted to presidents at his request when he was facing criminal prosecution last year. He also seems to think that if Qatar gives the plane to the Pentagon, that could offer him some cover.
“If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they’re building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture,” Trump said.
The Supreme Court declined to take an opportunity after Trump’s last term to weigh in on the issue of emoluments. Instead, justices dismissed lawsuits about payments made by foreign governments to the Washington, DC, hotel he owned at the time.
“This co-mingling of his personal financial interests and his presidency has created some issues,” said Jessica Tillipman, a professor at George Washington University Law School, during an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “There’s a reason why past presidents have either divested those interests or put them in a blind trust, because it creates those concerns that a president may be acting for his own private gain over public interest.”
Beyond the legal questions are the obvious ethical ones, Tillipman said. Whenever Trump interacts with Qatar during his presidency, this gift will be part of the public conversation.
“We know there’s a gift but there’s a long way to go in this Trump presidency to see whether there could be some sort of official act taken,” she said.
Trump’s businesses, led by his son Eric, are actively expanding with an eye to the Middle East during his second term in office. While Trump wants to accept Qatar’s jet, his company is involved in the opening of a Trump-branded golf course in the country. His name will appear on skyscrapers in Saudi Arabia. And the UAE used a crypto system set up by one of Trump’s companies to make a $2 billion deal, according to the New York Times.
Trump’s first major international trip of his second term gets underway in the Middle East this week. One wonders whether other countries will now try to come up with their own ways to impress the US president. If so, the opening bid is a $400 million plane.
In addition to the ethical and legal questions this raises, it’s hard to believe the Secret Service would ever trust a plane that was used by a foreign government, according to Garrett Graf, a presidential historian and author of the “Doomsday Scenario” newsletter.
Graff wrote a book documenting how President George W. Bush spent eight hours on Air Force One as the only plane allowed in US air space when the nation was under attack.
There are multiple layers of airborne protection around the president when he is flying. Many of the details are classified, but Graff wrote about how impenetrable the area around the president is meant to be.
“The idea of putting at the center of all of those rings of protection and secure communications a plane that has been under the control of a foreign government for more than a decade is unconscionable, both from a counterintelligence perspective and from a physical security perspective,” Graff wrote in his newsletter.
“To even begin to mitigate that risk, from an eavesdropping, tracking, cybersecurity, or sabotage standpoint would involve stripping the plane down to the equivalent of the studs — but even then, I wouldn’t put a US president on that plane,” he wrote.
Air Force One upgrade delayed and over budget
For an idea of how difficult it is to build a plane to the security specifications to satisfy the US government, consider that Boeing is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule in making two new Boeing 747s to replace the presidential fleet. One reason for the delay is the security clearance needed to work on the jets.
CNN’s Chris Isidore has written about Boeing’s troubles with the project, which was launched in 2018 during the first Trump administration and could extend past his second before the planes are delivered. Boeing is trying to move up the timeline.
Regardless of the ethical, legal and security problems with Trump’s plan to accept a plane from Qatar, there’s also the strange fact that a president who launched a worldwide trade war based on “America first” national security concerns sees no problem with accepting charity for the president from abroad.
Although the Qatari 747-B would not technically be imported, it is an awkward coincidence that the US Department of Commerce earlier this month opened an investigation into the national security implications of importing aircraft and parts.
There’s been bipartisan criticism over the potential plan to accept the Qatari plane.
“I think America can afford their own plane and build their own Air Force One,” former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on CNN Max.
Democrats were less diplomatic.
“This is just the latest reflection of an egregious, corrupt presidency that is using the office of the presidency for his personal gain,” said Rep. Dan Goldman of New York during an appearance on CNN. “We want to be sure that the president of the United States is always acting in the interest, sole interest of the United States, and not on behalf of a foreign country.”
