WASHINGTON ― Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that he’s placed a “hold” on all of President Donald Trump’s nominees to the Justice Department, in response to Trump’s plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet as a gift from the Qatari government to use as Air Force One, the official presidential plane.
This plan is “so corrupt that even Putin would give a double-take,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “This is not just naked corruption, it is also a grave national security threat.”
“I am announcing a hold on all DOJ political nominees until we get more answers,” he said.
The Democratic leader also separately sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, noting she personally signed off on Trump’s transaction with Qatar and asking her for details on what was agreed to in this deal.
Schumer’s actions come after Trump declared Sunday on social media that the Defense Department is “getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction.”
He told reporters a day later that he would “never” turn down an offer of a free replacement for Air Force One from the Qatari government: “I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’”
But his plans raise all kinds of constitutional and ethical questions. For starters, the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act unit needs to disclose all activities by Qatari foreign agents inside the U.S. that could benefit Trump or his organizations, Schumer said.
The president’s plan also raises questions about what the Qatari government is being offered in return, what security measures are built into this jet, and why the U.S. would risk trusting a foreign government to supply the U.S. president with a plane.
Schumer’s “hold” on Trump’s nominees doesn’t stop them from getting confirmed; it simply slows the process for confirming them. The Democratic leader is denying the GOP “unanimous consent” to move them along speedily.
Still, the delay counts for something. Each nominee will now have to go through another layer of votes to advance, which eats into Senate floor time. It’s the first time Schumer has placed a blanket hold on a full set of presidential nominees, which gets at the degree of how alarming it is that Trump has made this arrangement with Qatar.
During his Senate remarks, Schumer noted that that Qatari and other Gulf state nationals have spent billions of dollars on deals with Trump’s organizations, including $2 billion on Trump’s new stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency; the launch of a new Trump hotel in Dubai worth more than a billion dollars; and a golf course in Qatar worth as much as $5 billion.
“Donald Trump’s deals in the Middle East reek of self-enrichment,” he said. “It is jeopardizing America’s national security to line his own pockets.”
Senate Republicans have been largely avoiding questions about Trump accepting a luxury jet from Qatar. To date, just one GOP senator has openly raised concerns about it.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told HuffPost on Monday, “It just doesn’t seem right.”