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Jun 1, 2025  |  
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Elaine Mallon


NextImg:Richie Torres calls for ethics review of Qatar gifting Trump a plane

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is demanding an ethics review of President Donald Trump accepting a $400 million private luxury plane from Qatar.

Trump is expecting to receive the plane, already approved by the Justice Department, upon his visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week. The plane is being gifted to the United States Air Force to be temporarily used as Air Force One. The plane will then be transferred to Trump’s presidential library foundation for his personal use.

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Torres wrote a letter, obtained by the Hill, to the Government Accountability Office, the acting Defense Department inspector general, and the acting Office of Government Ethics director in which he raised concerns over the gift being in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, “which prohibits individuals holding public office from accepting gifts from foreign officials.

“The American people are witnessing, in real time, what can only be described as a ‘flying grift,’” Torres wrote in the letter.

However, the Justice Department already found that Trump’s acceptance of the plane would not be in violation of the Constitution prohibiting a U.S. government official from accepting foreign gifts because the “gift is not conditioned on any official act, [thus] it does not constitute bribery.” The plane is also technically being gifted to the U.S. Air Force and later transferred to Trump for personal use once he is a private citizen, thus making the gift “legally permissible.”

But Torres pointed out that Qatar, which has a history of financing Hamas, is not a neutral state and may be seeking to wield its influence over the Trump administration.

“Just as troubling as the gift itself is the identity of the benefactor,” Torres wrote in the letter. “Qatar is not a neutral party on the world stage. It has a deeply troubling history of financing a barbaric terrorist organization that has the blood of Americans on its hands. In the cruelest irony, Air Force One will have something in common with Hamas: paid for by Qatar.”

TRUMP ASKING MUSK TO PRESSURE BOEING ON DELIVERING NEW AIR FORCE ONE JETS

Trump announced Sunday that the federal government plans to accept the Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar after facing yearslong delays for a new Air Force One jet, which Boeing contracted during his first administration. However, a combination of factors, such as a worker shortage during the pandemic and one of Boeing’s major suppliers falling behind schedule, pushed the project to a completion date of 2028.

Since February, Trump has been eying a Qatari jet to serve as the new Air Force One.