The gifts ranged from ordinary ones like sandals and scarves to expensive ones like furs and daggers. The State Department disclosed a list of 82 gifts from the Saudis to Trump administration officials on the May 2017 trip in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed shortly after Mr. Trump and his aides appeared to receive a generous bounty. The Saudis have a history of giving lavish gifts to American presidents, and Mr. Trump had chosen the kingdom for his first visit abroad and was embracing them after years of tensions with the Obama administration. The Trump administration’s gift problems date from the president’s trip in May 2017 to Saudi Arabia, whose leaders were jubilant that Mr. The laws have no criminal penalties, although legal experts said that anyone caught taking government property could be prosecuted for theft. officials by foreigners and their appraised value.
To add transparency, provisions require administrations to annually disclose the gifts given to U.S. Subsequent amendments defined gifts as government property and created a standardized process for how officials were to deal with them. official could keep a gift of only relatively minimal value, now capped at $415. In 1966, Congress passed a law detailing how a U.S.
officials with lavish gifts that they included in the Constitution a clause making it illegal for an official to take anything of worth from a foreigner. The nation’s founders were so concerned that European nobility could co-opt U.S. government employees” and that it was “investigating the whereabouts of gifts that are unaccounted for and the circumstances that led to their disappearance.” The State Department declined to address the specifics of how the Trump administration handled gifts but said in a statement that it “takes seriously its role in reporting the disposition of certain gifts received by U.S. Brand, a criminal defense lawyer, ethics expert and former top lawyer for the House of Representatives.
“Whether this was indifference, sloppiness or the Great Train Robbery, it shows such a cavalier attitude to the law and the regular process of government,” said Stanley M. Trump took any gifts to which they were not entitled.īut ethics experts said the problems reflected larger issues with the Trump presidency. Trump’s handling of foreign gifts is not at the top of his critics’ list of administration offenses. Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, received two swords and a dagger from the Saudis, although he paid $47,920 for them along with three other gifts in February, after he left office. In addition, the Trump administration never disclosed that Jared Kushner, Mr. The bags contained dozens of items purchased with government funds, including leather portfolios, pewter trays and marble trinket boxes emblazoned with the presidential seal or the signatures of Mr. Trump’s political appointees walked off with gift bags worth thousands of dollars that were meant for foreign leaders at the Group of 7 summit planned for Camp David in 2020, which was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The State Department’s inspector general is investigating allegations that Mr. The tale of the furs is but one example of how gift exchanges between the United States and foreign leaders - a highly regulated process intended to shield administrations from questions of impropriety - devolved into sometimes risible shambles during the Trump administration. Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
“Wildlife inspectors and special agents determined the linings of the robes were dyed to mimic tiger and cheetah patterns and were not comprised of protected species,” said Tyler Cherry, a spokesman for the Interior Department, which oversees the U.S. The furs, from an oil-rich family worth billions of dollars, were fake.