Donald Trump’s secret foreign gifts
Donald Trump is infamous for applying a unique combination of laziness, greed, unlawfulness, and opportunism to so many areas of life. Now, Trump has set himself apart from the crowd in this way when it comes to gifts. Whether he’s giving or receiving, Trump’s behavior ranges from the shamefully pathetic to the shockingly illegal, and federal investigators now have their hands full.
Trump loves to boast about how wealthy he supposedly is, such as when he explained in a 2011 interview, “Part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich.” However, he is often stingy or allegedly forgetful when it comes to gifts. In April 2018, Trump admitted when asked in a phone interview on Fox News that he forgot to get his wife a gift on her birthday. “You know, I’m very busy to be running out looking for presents, okay?” Trump rationalized, chuckling.
Trump has also often failed to make good on promises to donate his money to charity, no matter how compelling or personal the cause. Perhaps the best example of this is when Trump pledged to donate the profits from sales of Trump Vodka to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). As Trump explained on the radio in 2005, he “sort of hated” promoting alcohol because his brother, Fred, died in 1981 from a heart attack related to alcoholism.
Trump declared he would “give 100 percent of” vodka sales to MADD “in honor of my late brother, Fred Trump. I guarantee you that Fred is looking down now and saying, ‘That’s really the best thing to do.’” As per its policy, MADD declined to accept any donations from the sale of alcohol. However, rather than find another suitable outlet, Trump appears to have just pocketed the money, according to reporting from HuffPost.
Trump’s latest gift grift is harder to pull off because it runs in the opposite direction and is unique to the presidency of the United States. According to a report from House Democrats issued Friday, Trump appears to have flouted the rules when it comes to accepting gifts. More than 100 foreign gifts worth over $250,000 remain unaccounted for.
Most notably, there are no records about a large painting of Trump gifted by El Salvador. There is evidence it was moved to Mar-a-Lago in 2021, according to The Guardian. Rep. Jamie Raskin, who helped compile the report, said the findings show “a brazen disregard for the rule of law and its systematic mishandling of large gifts.”
As another example, the Trump White House’s own chief ethics lawyer emailed concerns that a $5,999 computer from Tim Cook was a gift to the government, not Trump, according to the New York Times. The report is also sounding the alarm that Trump may have hidden foreign gifts that influenced U.S. policy.
Raskin vowed that his committee would “remain committed” to investigating the extent of Trump’s illegality. Not surprisingly, according to the Washington Post, “Republicans did not appear to participate in the investigation.” Once again, the GOP has chosen Trump over America.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month