Trump toured the Qatari-owned 747-8 in February when it was parked at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida, near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. At the time, the White House said the president did so to get a better understanding of how the updated Air Force One planes would be configured.
Trump has been frustrated by delays in the delivery of new 747-8 aircraft to serve as an updated Air Force One.Credit: Getty Images
In a statement, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a good government organisation based in Washington, questioned whether the transfer might violate the Constitution’s ban on US officials accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval.
“This sure looks like a foreign country that the president has personal business dealings [with] giving the president a $US400 million gift right before he meets with their head of state,” the spokesman, Jordan Libowitz, said.
The American ABC reported, citing sources, that lawyers for the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice had prepared an analysis concluding that it would be legal and constitutional for the Defence Department to accept the plane as a gift and later transfer it to Trump’s presidential library.
