On the menu today: A lot more information about P4-HBJ, the Qatari-owned plane that President Trump envisions becoming his new “Air Force One” for the remainder of his term and transferring to his presidential library, and everything you need to know about gifts to U.S. government officials from foreign governments — including what happens to the Rolexes given to the CIA director, the honey given from King Charles to President Biden, the napkin rings and linens given to Hunter Biden’s daughter, who gave chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley skincare products, and which foreign government covered the lodging costs for two Supreme Court justices in 2023. Read on.
The American President, Brought to You by Qatar Airways
President Trump, Monday, defending the proposed deal to accept a plane to be used as Air Force One from the Qatari government:
[The Qataris] buy a lot of Boeings, and they knew about it, and they said we would like to do something and if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they’re building the other ones — I think that was a very nice gesture. Now, I could be a stupid person and say, “Oh no, we don’t want a free plane, we give free things out, we’ll take one too.” And it helps us out, because again, we’re talking about, we have 40-year-old aircraft. The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy-top is astronomical. You wouldn’t even believe it.
Yesterday, I saw Trump fans arguing that the plane in question — P4-HBJ — was registered to Global Jet Isle of Man, therefore it wasn’t really a gift from the Qataris. (The “HBJ” is for the initials of Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, prime minister of Qatar from 2007 to 2013, who has hung out with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.)
Global Jet is a charter company. A company official told the New York Times that he “could not disclose the current owner, but that it is privately owned and not available for charters.”
Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the U.S., said Sunday, “The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made.” Global Jet may be operating the plane in question, but the Qatari government controls who gets it, at least for now.
In other words, have no illusions; the plan is for this plane to shift from property of the Qatari government to the U.S. government.
Some estimates have the new Boeing-built version of Air Force One ready by 2029, but the U.S. Air Force is in talks with Boeing to modify requirements for its new presidential aircraft in a push to get it into service by 2027. Either way, the new craft will be ready either a bit before or a bit after the conclusion of Trump’s second term. So, P4-HBJ would only be used during the remainder of Trump’s presidency or a bit after that, and then it would go to the Trump presidential library. But Trump insists it isn’t a gift to him.
In his statement, Trump lamented “the money we spend the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy top is astronomical you wouldn’t even believe it,” and indeed, as of 2022, Air Force One cost $177,000 an hour to fly.
However, turning P4-HBJ into a plane that that can meet the needs of flying the president will include its own considerable costs, and take up a considerable amount of time:
The aircraft would need to be torn down and rebuilt from the inside out — including overhauling electrical wiring, avionics and power systems — to install secure presidential communications, self-defense tech and electromagnetic shielding.
“The cost of a retrofit like this would likely be on the order of a heavy maintenance cycle for a VC-25A, which is in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars,” said former Air Force acquisitions chief Andrew Hunter:
Add to that the significant cost of sweeping the aircraft for software modifications or embedded foreign tech. “That’s not a trivial thing to do,” Hunter said. “That alone would cost tens of millions of dollars.”
P4-HBJ was delivered from Boeing to Qatar in April 2012. The lifespan of a 747-8 is 35,000 flight cycles (takeoff and landings), or “30 to 40 years is typical before the airframe is becoming too expensive to keep up.” By January 2029, P4-HBJ will have been used for 17 years, with another 13 to 23 years remaining in a typical lifespan.
If the U.S. government went through all the time and expense to retrofit and upgrade P4-HBJ to the standards of Air Force One . . . why would it then retire the plane to the Trump presidential library instead of using it for another decade or two?
(I can hear the objection now: But the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library has an Air Force One! Yes, that one was in service from 1973 to 2001. Once the new Boeing replacements are ready, we could easily justify retiring one of the current Air Force One planes (there are two) at the Trump library, but not a newly upgraded new one.)
Monday, Trump continued, “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person, say, ‘No, we don’t want a free very expensive airplane.’ But it was, I thought, it was a great gesture. . . . I think this was just a gesture of good faith.”
“Good faith.” Sometimes the president’s word choices offer perfect irony, as the evidence show that Qataris have been playing both sides in the war on terror for decades:
- The Qatari government gave 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed a patronage job in the Water Department and “one cabinet member in particular, a member of the royal family, seemed to have ties to groups like al Qaeda and appeared to have sponsored KSM.”
- Abdul Karim al-Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, provided Qatari passports and more than $1 million in a special bank account to finance the al-Qaeda in Iraq network, and operated a safe house for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when he transited the country going in and out of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda in Iraq eventually evolved into ISIS.
- In 2014, the U.S. revealed that two of al-Qaeda’s most senior financiers were living with impunity in Qatar despite being on a worldwide terrorism blacklist. That same year, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, called Qatar “Club Med for terrorists” and wrote, “every one of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read ‘Made possible through a kind donation from the emir of Qatar.’”
- Up until 2024, Hamas leaders worked out of Doha.
It is amazing that some people will observe, “We have military bases in Qatar,” and then conclude that the Qataris are reliable, trustworthy allies.
Trump has to go pretty far out there to shake the faith of an ardent supporter like Laura Loomer, but on this plane deal, he’s done it.
The president ought to heed the assessment of one of his predecessors who was resolutely determined to crush Islamist terrorism and who declared, less than a decade ago, “The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. . . . The time [has] come to call on Qatar to end its funding — they have to end that funding — and its extremist ideology.”
That leader, of course, was Donald Trump.
Everything You Need to Know About Foreign Gifts to U.S. Government Officials
Keep in mind, there are laws that cover gifts from foreign governments to the president, his cabinet, members of Congress, and Supreme Court justices — all gifts from foreign governments to any U.S. government employee, in fact.
When the president or any other U.S. official greets a foreign leader, often there’s an exchange of gifts. Those gifts are considered gifts to the country, not to the official personally.
Since 1978, federal employees have been required to file reports with their agencies detailing gifts worth a certain amount received from foreign government sources or an international organization. As of January 1, 2023, the threshold for reporting a gift is $480. Employees are permitted to keep gifts worth less than that; gifts worth more are considered gifts to the agency, although the employee has the option of purchasing the item at its estimated value.
Gifts that are not purchased are turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration or General Services Administration.
Those of us who acquired the odd habit of reading the Federal Register in our wire service days can find out all kinds of fascinating details about these gifts; I wrote up an article about this in the Washington Post way back in 2006.
The most recent report covers calendar year 2023 and some gift reports that missed the deadline for 2022 and 2021.
For example, on June 22, 2023, Narendra Modi, prime minister of the Republic of India, gave First Lady Jill Biden a 7.5 carat lab diamond, estimated in value at $20,000. According to the U.S. State Department, the diamond was “retained for official use in the East Wing.”
Earlier in the month, Abdel Fattah and Entissar El-Sisi, the president and first lady of Egypt, gave Jill Biden a set of gifts that included “chairs, [a] brooch, photograph album, bracelet.” The estimated value of all gifts together was $4,510; the first lady chose to purchase the brooch for an undisclosed amount.
In February 2023, Naomi Biden — the president’s niece, daughter of Hunter Biden — accepted a variety of gifts from Monica Geingos, first lady of Namibia, estimated at $566 in value. Naomi Biden chose to purchase the napkin rings, linens, wooden utensils, book, and tote bag.
All the gifts to President Biden were transferred to the National Archives. Certain perishable items, such as the honey given to him by King Charles III on July 10, 2023, were “disposed of pursuant to U.S. Secret Service policies.” The U.S. Secret Service does not allow the president to eat any food given to him as a gift, lest some aspiring assassins attempt to kill the president through poison. (Tragically, this means that when Argentine President Néstor Kirchner gave then-U.S. President George W. Bush 300 pounds of raw lamb meat as a gift in July 2003, no one ate it.)
Even the Central Intelligence Agency is required list gifts to employees, although the identity of the giver and receiver may not be disclosed. The only CIA employee identified in the disclosure announcement is former director William Burns. But the descriptions of the gifts provide a hint or two about the origin of the generosity.
On February 2, 2023, Burns accepted a ceremonial sword and “bisht,” a traditional men’s cloak worn in the Arab world, estimated at a value of $550; those items remain on display somewhere within an unnamed U.S. government facility.
On February 10, 2023, some CIA employee was given a “Tsikolia Brand Georgian Defense Forces Watch,” estimated at a value of $543, which seems pretty darn likely to relate to work in the Republic of Georgia. The employee is purchasing the watch.
On September 9, 2023, an agency employee was given a “Persian carpet” estimated at $1,100 that the employee intends to purchase. On April 12, 2023, an employee of the office of the Director of National Intelligence received an Indian cashmere silk rug estimated at a value of $500; the rug was put to “official use.” Also, not one but two ODNI employees managed to put bottles of Ballantine’s Blended Scotch Whiskey, each estimated at a value of $500, to “official use.” (Well done, whoever you are.)
On February 2, 2023, Burns received an Omega Watch estimated at $11,000. The watch was destroyed; I suspect this is to eliminate the possibility of any listening device or tracking device or other espionage mischief. Based upon the most recent Federal Register notice, the CIA ends up destroying a lot of nice luxury watches — Rolexes, Omegas, Rado Captain Cook.
On March 14, 2023, Belkhir El Farouk, the inspector general and chief of defense of Morocco, gave chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley two plaques and “skincare products.” The plaques were kept for official display, while the skincare products were turned over to the General Services Administration.
Finally, in September 2023, Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Elena Kagan, retired justice Stephen Breyer, and Robert Dow, Jr., counselor to the chief justice, accepted gifts of lodging for three nights from the supreme court of Canada.
Note that these rules apply only to gifts from foreign governments and international institutions and organizations. Domestic gifts to the president and/or first lady may be disposed of in any manner the president and first lady wish. If they want to keep a domestic gift, they do not have to purchase it from the government.
In 2023, Democrats on the House Government and Oversight Committee issued a report contending that during his first term, “Former President Trump and the First Family failed to report more than 100 foreign gifts with a total value of over a quarter of a million dollars.” The report alleged that Trump and his family failed to report 16 gifts with a total value of more than $45,000 from Saudi Arabia, 17 unreported gifts from India with a total estimated value of more than $47,000, and at least five foreign gifts from China in 2017, totaling $3,400 in estimated value.
Among the allegedly unreported gifts to President Trump was a dagger with ivory handle valued at more than $35,000.
The giver was Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, emir of Qatar.
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, Los Angeles County has issued seven rebuilding permits in three-and-a-half months, and today Syria’s new president will pitch President Trump on a proposal for a “Trump Tower Damascus.”