Of Course Trump Is Set To Accept $400M Luxury Jet From Qatar

Back in my younger years, I once wrote a story about youngsters mixing Red Bull energy drink with liquor. It was a new thing. This is back when I was a cub reporter still trying to get my feet wet, and it seemed like something fun that the Washington Post readers would love. I called Red Bull to speak with them, and they were mysterious about everything because they loved the marketing. When the story ran, Red Bull sent over a case of drinks and a note saying how much they loved the story. 

Before I could even make it back to my seat from the mailroom, a senior reporter stopped me and pointed out that I couldn’t keep those. I was puzzled. She noted that reporters don’t take gifts under any circumstances because it could cloud our impartiality. I was annoyed and thirsty when I turned them over to the boss, who pointed out that they would be donated. 

The point is I couldn’t even keep a case of Red Bulls, and the president of the United States is about to take a whole plane from a foreign country and make it Air Force One.

Because President Trump has no problem being openly courted as an agent working against American interests, the royal family of Qatar is gifting Orange Hitler a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet that the Trump administration wants to turn into his personal Uber.  

According to ABC News, the workaround, so it doesn’t seem as if it’s going straight to Trump, is that once it’s handed over to the administration, ownership of the wildly expensive jet will be given to the Trump library. 

All of this was supposed to happen next week when Trump is supposed to visit Qatar, but Trump officials are now saying that the gift won’t be given to the president while he’s in Qatar. 

From ABC News:

In a social media post Sunday night, Trump confirmed his administration was preparing to accept the aircraft, calling it a “very public and transparent transaction” with the Defense Department.

Trump had previously toured the plane, which is so opulently configured it is known as “a flying palace,” while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.

The highly unusual — unprecedented — arrangement is sure to raise questions about whether it is legal for the Trump administration, and ultimately, the Trump presidential library foundation, to accept such a valuable gift from a foreign power.

Anticipating those questions, sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution’s prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts “from any King, Prince or foreign State.”

Sources told ABC News 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, according to sources familiar with their determination.

And in case you had any trouble following any of the above commentary just know that all of the people that Trump appointed from Fox News, you know those people who worship the ground that he walks on, don’t see anything wrong with the president of the United States taking a massive gift from a foreign leader and making it his personal plane. 

In fact, Bondi and her staff have gone out of their way to find legalese to explain why all of this is totally above board.  

“Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to ABC News. “President Trump’s administration is committed to full transparency,” Leavitt added.

That’s because the White House believes that if they tell you they are doing something that is totally ridiculous and against everything that any upstanding moral citizen would do then they aren’t in fact breaking the laws. Not to mention any one of us that has ever seen 24, Breaking Bad, or any of the Law and Orders knows that the jet is going to be wired up and down.

I can’t believe that any of this is even being seriously considered, yet, here we are. 

Also, I want my Red Bulls back. 

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