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Trump always manages to escape accountability because he finds others to do his dirty work. In the case of Trump accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar, the fall guy appears to be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin wrote to Hegseth to notify him that by accepting the plane, he is breaking the law.
Raskin wrote in part:
Having done such an outstanding job coercing a foreign government into making an unconstitutional and unlawful gift, you were rewarded by the President for your work when he assigned you to be the official to formally accept the “flying palace” from the Qatari royals.
Your own spokesperson at the Department of Defense (DOD) stated: “The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar.”
Alas for you, this means that, as of today, you are now the one in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, because it is plainly just as unconstitutional for you—another “person holding [an] Office of Profit or Trust” 8 of the United States—to accept this luxury plane from the monarchical government of Qatar as it is for President Trump to do so. You are also in violation of the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act.
That law provides congressional consent for government officials to accept certain gifts of up to $480 in value— though not $400 million jumbo jets—from foreign governments. The Act expressly prohibits an employee of the United States—which includes you—from “request[ing] or otherwise encourag[ing] the tender of a gift” as President Trump had evidently done with your help and that of Ambassador Witkoff.
Even worse for you, the Act provides that, to address violations, “the Attorney General may bring a civil action … against any employee who knowingly solicits or accepts a gift from a foreign government” not in accordance with the Act—which this “gift” is not—and allows a court to assess a penalty “not to exceed the retail value of the gift improperly solicited or received plus $5,000.”
