‘Just wildly illegal': top Democrats push to censure Trump's plan to accept Qatar jet
Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorized to do so by Congress.
Cory Booker from New Jersey, Brian Schatz from Hawaii, Chris Coons from Delaware and Chris Murphy from Connecticut cast the reported gift of the Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a clear conflict of interest and a serious threat to national security.
'Air Force Once is more than just a plane – it's a symbol of the presidency and of the United States itself,' the senators said in a joint statement. 'No one should use public service for personal gain through foreign gifts.'
News of a possible gift of the luxury jet prompted immediate scathing criticism from senior Democrats. Though the Qatari government has stressed that no final decision has yet been made, Trump appeared to confirm it on Sunday when he commented on social media that the transfer was being made 'in a very public and transparent transaction'.
Related: Trump says planned gift of luxury plane from Qatar is a very 'transparent' deal
The plan appears to be for the 13-year-old plane to be fitted out by the US military for use as Air Force One and then, when Trump leaves the White House, for it to be put on display in his presidential library – in effect being handed to Trump for his own personal use.
The reported arrangement comes as Trump sets off for a tour of the Middle East, including Qatar. Another of the countries on the tour, the United Arab Emirates, has also become embroiled in controversy over potential conflicts of interest involving Trump.
Last week it was revealed that an investment firm based in Abu Dhabi had injected $2bn into a stablecoin venture launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto company as an investment into the crypto exchange Binance.
Senate Democrats are also gearing up to challenge Trump's conflicts of interest under congressional rules governing the sale of military weapons to foreign countries.
Murphy, the senator from Connecticut who has been at the forefront of sounding the alarm over conflicts of interest in the second Trump administration, has said he will use his powers to challenge arms sales as a way of forcing a full debate and Senate vote on both the Qatar plane and UAE stablecoin issues.
He said on social media that he would object to 'any military deal with a nation that is paying off Trump personally – we can't act like this is normal foreign policy'.
He added: 'UAE's investment in Trump crypto and Qatar's gifting of a plane is nuclear grade graft.'
In an earlier post on Bluesky, Murphy described the idea of Qatar handing over the jet as being 'just wildly illegal'.
Trump has so far brushed aside the Democratic fury. He praised Qatar's offer on Monday as a 'great gesture' and said he would 'never be one to turn down that kind of offer'.
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