Trump and his family didn’t report $300,000 in gifts – including a giant self-portrait

A giant portrait of former President Donald Trump presented to the White House by the President of El Salvador is among gifts totaling $300,000 that Oversight Committee Democrats say have either gone missing or gone unreported.

The portrait was presented as a gift from Salvadoran President Nayib. He forwarded it to Trump-appointed ambassador to the country, Ron Johnson, a veteran CIA officer.

He sent the image to an aide to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and wrote that it was “wrapped and ready to ship to President Trump.”

“I just need to know where to send it,” Johnson added.

Trump aide Molly Michael asked ‘where should I ship?’

Kushner himself simply wrote, “Can we arrange this – very nice.”

An attached image shows the Salvadoran president giving a thumbs up next to a portrait of Trump starting at the knees. The president’s head is slightly higher than the president’s, making the portrait the size of a grown man.

Government regulations require officials to report gifts received in official duties to the State Department, which holds them and records their value.

The Trump White House “failed to report more than 100 foreign gifts given to the president and the First Family that were above the reporting threshold, including some gifts worth thousands of dollars,” said the staff report, which will be released in the course of the year. of a year has been prepared by the committee where Rep. Jamie Raskin is now the top Democrat.

The commission discovered 16 unreported gifts to the Trump family totaling more than $45,000, including three gifts to President Trump and one gift to the President and First Lady. The unreported gifts included a Saudi dagger worth up to $24,000 and two sets of swords worth a total of $8,800. Records from the General Services Administration (GSA) showed that Mr. Kushner purchased and held five Saudi gifts, including the dagger,” the report said.

According to the Democratic report, “There are no records of the disposition of the painting. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had no record of this painting, and GSA had no record of the purchase of this gift.”

But transitional documents’ indicating that the director of correspondence of Donald J. Trump’s office certified “full compliance with the final disposition of gifts” in April 2021, records obtained by the commission suggest the portrait may have been moved to Florida as “property ‘. from the former president “by July 2021,” the report suggests.

The document also references “reports” of a $3,755 golf driver handed to Trump by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who died last year.

Federal Register listings showed zero foreign gifts reported for President Trump from Prime Minister Abe in 2017, 2018 or 2019, but internal White House records show Prime Minister Abe gave additional golf clubs to President Trump during visits to the Trump International Golf Club and Kasumigaseki Country Club in 2017 and 2018,” the staff reported, including a $460 putter and a #3,040 driver.

The Archive ‘has no record of these golf clubs and does not hold the golf clubs. GSA also has no record of the golf clubs purchased. The commission is still trying to determine the final destination of these gifts,” the report said.

But there may be errors. The report says the destination of a gift to Kushner from Egypt remains “unknown.”

A footnote refers to “a box decorated with silver patterns with an estimated value of $450 received from Kamal Abbas, General Coordinator of the Center for Trade Unions and Labor Service in 2018.”

But a former official pointed to a government document that says the box is in the Presidential Materials Division, with the name of the safe — 45 — and a box number.

It describes it as “personal equipment, a rectangular box with a hinged lid and a certificate stating that it is ‘pure silver’.” However, markings in Arabic indicate that it is 90% silver.

“The failure to disclose gifts from foreign governments was much broader than previously known and spanned the entire Trump administration,” the report said.

The total included gifts totaling $48,000 from Saudi Arabia. The gifts came from a range of powerful leaders and governments.

“The unreported foreign gifts include gifts from President Xi Jinping of China, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and other foreign government officials,” the report said.

It came during a week when Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer released bank records on a Hunter Biden associate, including a wire transfer that showed Beau Biden widow Hallie Biden was getting $35,000 in wire transfers around the time a Hunter associate was getting $3 million from a Chinese company.

Today’s preliminary findings again highlight the Trump administration’s brutal disregard for the rule of law and its systematic mishandling of large gifts from foreign governments, including many lavish personalized gifts that exceed the legal limit in value but have never been reported. done. missing today,” Raskin said.