𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The furor over Qatar possibly giving the U.S. a $400 million Boeing jet for Donald Trump to use as a replacement for Air Force One has highlighted administration figures’ thicket of concerning business connections to the country, as Trump prepares to visit the U.S. ally during a Middle East tour this week.

Last month, the Trump Organization, run by Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr, announced a deal with developers Dar Global and Qatari Diar to build a Trump International Golf Club featuring 18 holes and a series of Trump-branded luxury villas within a larger government development.

Elsewhere, state-backed funds from Qatar were part of a $6 billion funding round for Trump adviser Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, and a fund from Qatar is also invested in the private equity firm of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, meanwhile, once earned up to $115,000 per month lobbying for Qatar.

The Trump family and the White House have defended the administration from criticisms that they are improperly mixing business and politics.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told The Wall Street Journal that it was “ridiculous” to claim “President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.” She instead argued that the Republican was reelected because voters trust that “he acts in the best interest of our country.”

Amid mounting scrutiny of other Middle East-linked Trump deals, such as a United Arab Emirates state and royal family fund using $2 billion of crypto from Trump’s World Liberty Financial to invest in a crypto exchange, Donald Trump Jr also pushed back.

“It’s laughable that the left-wing media thinks that I should lock myself in a padded room while my father is president and cease doing what I’ve been doing for over 25 years to earn a living and provide for my five children,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a statement to The New York Times.

The purported Air Force One replacement deal, which Qatar has insisted is still only under consideration, has attracted storms of criticism from Democrats as well as some conservatives. Many have pointed out Qatar’s funding of Hamas – estimated at some $1.8 billion since 2007 – while Trump attacks university protesters supporting Gaza.

MAGA activist Laura Loomer called the transfer a “stain” on the administration, while conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said such a deal did not fit with Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” of Washington corruption.

A rising concern is Qatar’s influence on Trump and conflicts of interest as his sons negotiate deals with Qatar that will directly enrich the Trump family fortunes.

To guard against influence and bribery the Constitution’s emoluments clause prohibits any government official from accepting gifts from “any King, Prince or foreign State.”

Sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice concluded it is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation.

They claim it does not violate bribery laws as it is not conditioned on any official act and is not being given to an individual, but rather to the Air Force and then the Trump library.

It’s not an opinion shared by many ethics experts.

Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in government ethics, told NPR that the plane “is not really a gift to the United States at all” if it’s going to end up at Trump’s presidential library.

Trump’s acceptance of the plane would constitute a personal gift and it would be a “pretty textbook case of a violation of the Emoluments Clause,” said Briffaut.

He also noted that the point of a gift like the plane is to make the U.S. president feel beholden.

Gifts are “designed to create good feelings for the recipient and to get some kind of reciprocity,” Briffault said. “The thing that [Trump] can give [to Qatar], of course, is public policy — weapons deals or whatever. And then, of course, it’s an incentive to other countries to give similar gifts as another way of influencing presidential decision-making.”

In addition, Trump’s company and sons are already trying to increase their fortunes in the region. “Is America’s best interest being served, or is it the best interests of the Trump Organization?” Jordan Libowitz of the nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked NPR.

The White House has said in the past that Trump’s assets are held in trust – though clearly he is aware of what his own sons are doing on behalf of a company he owns and whose profits he will enjoy.

Trump, for his part, has defended the reported aircraft gift that has been described as a “flying palace“ for its opulence.

“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!”