The scandal keeps piling on for ex-President Donald Trump, as a new report from Business Insider reveals that numerous and extensive records of gifts received by the former president, his former Vice President Mike Pence, and various other Trump White House officials by various foreign governments are apparently missing, as the Trump administration did not provide the information on the gifts, according to the US State Department.
The United States State Department has announced that they were unable to put together a complete and accurate record representation of the gifts that were received by Donald Trump, members of his family, and other Trump White House officials, due to the lack of information provided by the ex-president’s administration.
As we’re well aware by now, thanks to Donald Trump and his people’s already numerous scandals in the same department, government officials are beholden to federal law that requires them to disclose any gifts they receive from foreign governments provided that the value of the gift is more than $415. This law is in place to help prevent acts of bribery and/or undue influence.
This stunt by the ex-president and his White House people is just yet another mark in the long succession of their tendency to skirt and sidestep rules, precedent, and even federal laws.
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The former top ethics lawyer for George W. Bush’s administration, Richard W. Painter, spoke with the New York Times on the matter and said, “It’s flagrant, and it looks terrible. Either it was really stupid or really corrupt.”
Business Insider notes that foreign trips during the latter half of Trump’s term were limited, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the then-president still traveled to Switzerland and India, where he was gifted a few different things from foreign officials, including a bust of Gandhi, a marble sculpture of Gandhi’s famous “three monkeys” metaphor, and a spinning wheel.
Donald Trump was also visited by several different foreign world leaders at the White House during his presidential term.
The revelation regarding the missing records pertaining to gifts given to Trump and his officials was discovered in the footnotes of an incomplete list of gifts that was received by US officials in 2020 from the State Department’s Office of Protocol and published yesterday. The State Department said that, while under the reign of a Trump administration official, their Office of the Chief of Protocol did not submit the request for information, and the Trump White House did not provide it.
According to the US State Department, they have since attempted to recover the information that’s currently missing from current sources in authority but were unsuccessful as current officials told them that “potentially relevant records” are not available because of “access rules for retired records.”
Of course, it certainly didn’t go un-noted that Trump’s time in the White House has displayed an overall “lack of adequate record-keeping pertaining to diplomatic gifts.”
Painter noted to the Times that, by failing to report gifts he and his officials received from foreign power entities, Trump directly violated the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution. But he goes on to explain that a violation of said act does not carry any criminal or civil penalties, making it extremely difficult to hold officials accountable for failing to abide by the clause.
You can read the full report on the matter from Business Insider here.
Featured image via screen capture
