Uncharted territory: US accepts 'gift' of $400 million Qatari plane

USA Today

22-05-2025

Uncharted territory: US accepts 'gift' of $400 million Qatari plane | The Excerpt
On a special episode (first released on May 22, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: In 2018, the U.S. Air Force awarded a $3.9 billion contract to Boeing for two new Air Force One planes. For a variety of reasons, including delays tied to the need for workers with proper security clearances, Boeing may or may not be able to complete the order before the end of President Donald Trump's second term. Meanwhile, the Qatari Prime Minister offered to gift the president a luxury 747 jet valued at $400 million. And the Department of Defense has just accepted it. There are questions about whether the Qatari plane can even be brought up to Air Force One's safety and security standards before Trump leaves office. But the bigger question may be whether it was lawful for the president to accept it. Richard Briffault, Professor of Legislation at Columbia Law School, joins us on The Excerpt to share his insights. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [e-mail].
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
Hello, and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, May 22nd, 2025, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. In 2018, the U.S. Air Force awarded a $3.9 billion contract to Boeing for two new Air Force One planes for a variety of reasons, including delays tied to the need for workers with proper security clearances. Boeing may or may not be able to complete the order before the end of President Donald Trump's second term. Meanwhile, the Qatari Prime Minister has offered to gift the President a luxury 747 jet valued at $400 million, and the Department of Defense has just accepted it. There are questions about whether the Qatari plane can even be brought up to Air Force One's safety and security standards before Trump leaves office, but the bigger question may be whether it's lawful for the president to accept it. Here to share his insights on that, I'm now joined by Richard Briffault, Professor of Legislation at Columbia Law School. Thanks for joining me, Richard.
Richard Briffault:
My pleasure. Happy to be here.
Dana Taylor:
There are two emoluments clauses, the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. Let's start with the Foreign Clause. What is its purpose and who does it apply to?
Richard Briffault:
The Foreign Emoluments Clause is basically designed to prevent federal officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments, from foreign heads of state. Many people think it relates to a specific incident during the period and time of the revolution of the time of the writing of the Constitution when Benjamin Franklin, who was then the ambassador to France, received an ornate jeweled box as a gift from the King of France. And people in America were suspicious that somehow this would've made him too pro-French, and so that at least is the story behind the Emoluments Clause.
It applies to anybody, and this is the phrase in the Constitution, "Who holds an office of profit or trust under the United States." That clearly picks up all federal appointees, all federal officials. There is some debate as to whether it actually applies to the president technically, but the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office in the Justice Department that advises presidents, has for a very long time assumed that it does.
Uncharted territory: US accepts 'gift' of $400 million Qatari plane
The Constitution's emoluments clause is clear, accepting the plane as a gift is illegal. We're way past that.
Dana Taylor:
And what about the Domestic Emoluments Clause? What is its purpose?
Richard Briffault:
Again, it applies to gifts from the states, and it's designed to prevent the president from being, or any federal official I should say, from being biased in favor of one of the states. If a state were to give a fancy gift to the president or to a federal official, they might be prejudiced or biased. There was an interpretation of that one involving when President Reagan became president, he had been Governor of California. Was there a problem in his receiving his pension from California? Because that was a gift from the... And then the office said, "No, there isn't, because he had of course earned that while he was governor." But that showed that that was seen as clearly applying to the president.
Dana Taylor:
The question many, including some of the president's supporters, have been asking is can a sitting president accept gifts from a foreign government and does the size of the gift matter?
Richard Briffault:
The size shouldn't matter. Of course the bigger the gift, the bigger the problem. I think the legal problem would begin even with a small gift. I mean, I think the key problem here is that whether it's a gift to the president as opposed to a gift to the United States. I mean, presidents have been receiving ceremonial gifts for years, an elephant here, a panda there, a jeweled sword somewhere else, and that usually just goes into the National Archives, or I guess the animals go to the zoo. But it's always been a long tradition of honorary gifts.
But something like this, the scale of it is enormous, and of course it would be for the personal use of the president. Prior presidents were not using those jeweled swords or snuffboxes. Another thing that's most troubling is the idea that at the end of his term it wouldn't remain with the United States, but it would go to Trump's foundation. I think it might be a different story if this was literally a gift to the United States and the plane remained part of the United States government.
Dana Taylor:
Where are we legally and ethically with regards to the DOD accepting this gift on behalf of the president?
Richard Briffault:
Much will turn on the exact terms of the arrangement, but if, as I understand it from news accounts, the United States is accepting it during Trump's term but then it goes to Trump when he leaves office or it goes to the Trump Foundation, then basically the problem is it's essentially a gift to him. That triggers the Emoluments Clause and it would violate the Constitution unless Congress votes to accept it. That's the problem is that the United States may be taking possession so that of course the Defense Department can go through the plane and make sure that it's secure for national security purposes. But if at the end of Trump's term it goes with Trump rather than staying with the United States, then it's essentially a gift to him, and that means that we have all of the problems with the Emoluments Clause that we've all been talking about ever since this issue arose when Qatar made the offer.
Dana Taylor:
Are there other recent examples of a sitting president accepting a large gift from a foreign government?
Richard Briffault:
Not in a personal capacity. And I'm sure there have been gifts, and again, there are all sorts of ceremonial gifts that come, and these usually just go into the National Archives. I'm sure there have been gifts, but nothing like this.
Dana Taylor:
Whether or not the acceptance of the 747 jet is a good idea is a separate issue altogether. The bigger issue I want to get to here is that this is just the latest in a cavalcade of questionable actions by the president, the $1 million per plate fundraiser in April, his $1.5 million per person fundraiser for an unknown purpose earlier this month, a Middle East trip which included private dealmaking by both the president and those in his entourage, his and Melania's meme coins. The list goes on. Are all of these ethical violations? And if so, who will rein the president in?
Richard Briffault:
Yeah, so that's a great question, and you're right to put this in perspective. In some ways, the plane is relatively minor compared to the president's meme coin, the president's crypto business or the president's family's crypto business, the $TRUMP and the $MELANIA coins. The amounts of money there are potentially huge, and of course they go directly to the president or to the president's family. So you're absolutely right, the plane is very dramatic, but in some sense it's smaller, or as you suggest, it's part of a bigger picture of this president not having any kind of inner guardrails of any reluctance at all. Quite the opposite to use his office, public office for his own personal or private benefit. And in some ways, the essence of ethics, of government ethics is public office is a public trust, you should be using the public office only for public purposes and not for private gain.
It's whether this technically violates any laws is a trickier question because relatively few laws apply to the president. Many of them, these were being done by members of the cabinet or members of the regular federal government, yes, be all sorts of legal violations, but the presidency is a unique position. Certainly you wouldn't expect his own Justice Department to enforce them against him, and there's really nobody else who can. So I think we've traditionally relied on presidents' own sense of what's the right thing to do with laws in the background, getting legal advice, and this is a president who doesn't really seem to care about that. As he says, "With respect to the plane, it would be foolish to turn down the gift."
But the point is the whole reason we have rules like this is to prevent use of public office for private gain, and also to eliminate the danger that a president or anybody in public office would be biased or influenced to give favors to those people who've been giving favors to him. Not outright bribes, not outright deals, those I'm going to guess don't happen that much, and even in this case, I'm not sure that there's anyone could show that there was a outright bribe or an outright deal. But all these things are designed to make, when people are buying the meme coin or Qatari government giving the jet, they will all, whether it's intended or not, they're likely to have the effect of the president being more favorably disposed to the giver and the buyer, the person who's supporting him financially than otherwise, and that can affect decisions.
On crypto, he's in the position to approve laws and to influence the development of laws and the enforcement of laws that deal with the whole industry. So there he's got direct stake. The Qatari jet, he makes foreign policy. He's going to decide what positions we take on things in the Middle East, and obviously they have a huge stake in that.
Dana Taylor:
As you said, the president's office is part of the public trust. The list of President Trump's business ventures runs the gambit from selling cologne and crypto to building lavish resorts and golf courses across the globe. Is the public trust eroded when a president profits from his privileged position, and what's the impact to America's standing in the world globally?
Richard Briffault:
I think it hurts us globally. I think until this president, United States really did stand as a symbol or a pillar of democracy, of rule of law, of checks and balances, and even of public integrity. I think Americans helped other countries, particularly emerging democracies, set up their anti-corruption rules and how to deal with that, and basically making the argument that elected officials that are there to serve the public and not themselves, which is not always the case in many countries around the world, and I think United States played an important role in promoting that vision of public officials as serving their people, not themselves. I think this totally undermines our credibility for that. Regardless of whether it's affecting any individual policy decisions of his, he's acting like any other person, any other leader of another country who is using office to enrich himself.
Dana Taylor:
Richard, thank you so much for being on The Excerpt.
Richard Briffault:
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [e-mail]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.