Shortly after President Trump's inauguration in 2017, he was sued for violating the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause. That litigation stretched the entirety of Trump's first term in office, but did not reach a clear resolution. After Trump's term concluded, all of those cases fizzled out. Now, we are more than 100 days into Trump's second term. And, to my surprise, there has been zero litigation about the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Likewise, there has been no litigation following Trump v. Anderson about whether Section 3 disqualifies Trump from office. I suppose these were not the constitutional crises that we were told.
Yet, the Foreign Emoluments has still returned to the fore. ABC News reports that the royal family of Qatar will gift a 747-8 jumbo jet to the Air Force for its use as Air Force One. And at the end of Trump's term, the plane will be transferred to the Trump Presidential library foundation. ABC reports that White House Counsel, David Warrington, asked the Department of Justice for an opinion on the gift. The opinion has not (yet) been made public, but ABC offers this account:
Anticipating those questions, sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel's office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution's prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts "from any King, Prince or foreign State."
Sources told ABC News that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump's top White House lawyer David Warrington concluded it would be "legally permissible" for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump's presidential library before the end of his term, according to sources familiar with their determination.
The sources said Bondi provided a legal memorandum addressed to the White House counsel's office last week after Warrington asked her for advice on the legality of the Pentagon accepting such a donation. . . .
Both the White House and DOJ concluded that because the gift is not conditioned on any official act, it does not constitute bribery, the sources said. Bondi's legal analysis also says it does not run afoul of the Constitution's prohibition on foreign gifts because the plane is not being given to an individual, but rather to the United States Air Force and, eventually, to the presidential library foundation, the sources said.
