A Bird? A Plane? An Emolument?

Trump’s new Air Force One, courtesy of Qatar.

We’ve come a long way from Benjamin Franklin’s snuffbox.

In 1785, King Louis XVI of France presented Franklin, a departing American diplomat, with a diamond-encrusted snuffbox, adorned with a portrait of the monarch.

In Paris — as in other European capitals — the gift was business-as-usual. But in the fledgling United States, it was controversial.

After splitting off from Great Britain, American leaders were determined to also break away from the political culture of Europe, which was defined by constant gift-giving and corruption. “We have a perfect horror at everything like connecting ourselves with the politics of Europe,” where “someone or other will always be bought off,” Thomas Jefferson wrote.

The Articles of Confederation — the body of law that governed the U.S. from 1781 to 1789 — prevented American politicians from accepting gifts from foreign countries without permission from Congress.

Franklin sought, and received, congressional approval to keep the snuffbox. But the stench of the episode lingered. As Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout notes in her book “Corruption in America,” which recounts the snuffbox episode, the first draft of the Constitution did not include a similar provision about diplomatic gifts.

But the final draft did, as memorialized in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

The Franklin incident appears to have played a role in changing the Framers’ minds. As Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph later explained:

This restriction was provided to prevent corruption… An accident, which actually happened, operated in producing the restriction. A box was presented to our ambassador by the king of our allies. It was thought proper, in order to exclude corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any one in office from receiving or holding any emoluments from foreign states.

(The Oxford dictionary defines an “emolument” as a “salary, fee, or profit from employment or office.”)

In the modern era, some dispute has emerged about whether the Foreign Emoluments Clause applies to the president, as some legal experts have argued that only appointed positions count as an “Office” under the United States, not elected positions like the president and vice president.

(You might recall that a similar argument played out in the case about whether President Trump should be removed from the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court decided the case on other grounds, and never weighed in on the “Office” dispute.)

Indeed, early presidents like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson don’t appear to have interpreted themselves as being subject to the clause; they accepted foreign gifts without permission. But Randolph, one of the Constitution’s authors, clearly felt differently: he said that Article I, Section 9 prohibits the “the President” from “receiving emoluments from foreign powers.” (If violations of the clause are discovered, Randolph added, “he may be impeached.”)

Presidents throughout the 19th and 20th centuries appear to have followed the Randolph interpretation, notifying Congress when foreign leaders gave them gifts and only keeping them after securing permission.

Eventually, the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1967 gave broad congressional for officeholders — including the president — to accept foreign gifts of “minimal value,” currently defined as $480 or less. By law, anything worth more than that is deemed “property of the United States,” and can only be kept by the officeholder if purchased from the U.S. government at market value.

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240 years after the Franklin snuffbox controversy, President Trump is now reportedly in talks to accept one of the largest foreign gifts in U.S. history: a luxury jet from Qatar that he would use as his new Air Force One.

ABC News was the first to report the news on Sunday. According to Axios, the U.S. and Qatar had been bargaining over the price of a Boeing 747-8 — marketed as a “palace in the sky” — that the Trump administration planned to use as the presidential plane.

But then representatives of the Qatari royal family “came back and said: ‘We’ll just gift it. It’s OK,” a source told Axios.

The Qatari government said in a statement that the transfer has not been finalized and is only “under consideration.” But Trump, in a Truth Social post, seemed to confirm the arrangement:

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. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA

The word “temporarily” is the key one there. The Qatari government transferring a Boeing 747 to the U.S. government, free of charge, would be highly unusual, but could perhaps be construed as an act of institutional friendship from one government to the other, rather than anything personal.

But if the arrangement is “temporary,” how long does the gift last for and what happens at the end? Herein lies the problem. According to ABC, and several other news outlets, the Trump administration’s plan is for the Defense Department to accept the jet from Qatar — and then, before Trump leaves office in January 2029, for the Pentagon to transfer it to Trump’s presidential library foundation.

Air Force One jets are usually used for decades. This one, apparently, would belong to the U.S. for fewer than four years, and then — instead of future presidents being able to use it — it would be made available for Trump’s personal use as a former president.

In essence, Qatar would not be gifting the plane to the Defense Department, as Trump claimed. They would be gifting it to Trump, using the U.S. government as a middleman while he is in office.

And the trade, it should be noted, would not be costless for the middleman. The U.S. government would reportedly be on the hook for paying to retrofit the jet’s security features in 2025, and then for paying the costs of transferring it to the Trump library foundation in 2029. Also, presumably, the plane’s unusually short official use means that the government will have to pay to procure another Air Force One for the next president in just four years.

Taxpayer dollars would be used to ease both ends of the arrangement, but the office of the presidency would see no benefit from the gift long-term. Only Trump would.

Considering how much the Qatari kingdom would benefit from having a U.S. president in their corner, this may sound eerily like the sort of personal gifts from a foreign power that the Founders worried would unduly influence American politicians. But fear not. According to ABC, Attorney General Pam Bondi was consulted about the plan and has informed Trump that it would be “legally permissible” and not violate the Emoluments Clause. Bondi, before taking office, was a registered foreign lobbyist for Qatar.

The gift does not appear to be final yet. It could be announced during Trump’s visit to Qatar this week, or the plan could be scrapped — or modified — due to backlash. At least one Republican lawmakers, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), appeared to criticize the gift on Sunday, although he did not name Trump or refer to the Qatari plane specifically:

Trump ally Laura Loomer, a right-wing conspiracy theorist whose advice the president has taken in the past, also criticized the move, saying it would be “such a stain” on Trump’s administration, due to Qatar’s financial support for the terrorist group Hamas.

“And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump,” Loomer added. “I’m so disappointed.”

And yet, it is hardly the only opportunity for foreign influence created during Trump’s second administration. The three Middle Eastern countries Trump will travel to this week — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar — have all announced deals with Trump’s family business in recent months.

Later tonight, bidding will end in a contest promising a private dinner with the president to the top 220 holders of Trump’s personal memecoin (and a White House tour to the top 25 holders). According to a Bloomberg analysis, at least 56% of the top 220 holders of the cryptocurrency used offshore exchanges that exclude American customers, suggesting that they are foreign buyers.

Several of the buyers have explicitly said they plan to use the dinner to bend Trump’s ear on policy.