Trump Gave Three Aides $45,000 Cash Gifts
Trump Gave Three Aides $45,000 Cash Gifts
The News
President Donald Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to three of his closest White House aides, according to financial disclosures filed by the administration and reported Monday night by the Washington Post and Politico.
Executive assistant Natalie Harp, Oval Office operations deputy director Chamberlain Harris and communications adviser Margo Martin each reported the same $45,000 payment from Trump on their annual public financial disclosure forms.
The three gifts total $135,000. Each came on top of the aide's $150,000 taxpayer-funded annual salary — about 30 percent of what each woman earns in a year.
What the Forms Say
The filings name Trump as the source of each payment and describe them as a "cash gift for the holidays," Politico reported. Harris listed Trump's location as Washington, D.C.; Harp and Martin listed Palm Beach, Florida. The forms provide few other details.
Timeline
Trump gives each of the three aides a $45,000 holiday cash gift, according to the disclosures they later filed.
The White House's annual report to Congress on White House staff lists each of the three at a $150,000 salary, the figure both Politico and the Washington Post used to calculate the gifts at roughly one-third of their pay.
The administration publicly releases the annual financial disclosure forms containing the payments.
The Washington Post reports the gifts. Politico confirms the filings and publishes a White House response.
Reactions
The White House defended the payments as personal and legal. "The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector," a White House spokesman told Politico. "The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals' official government duties, and, therefore, are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards."
The Washington Post reported that experts it consulted called the gifts without precedent and said they may violate the law.
Politico noted that all three recipients are among the aides with the most day-to-day access to the president.
What's Next
The disclosures are already public, so any consequence would have to come from an ethics review or a congressional inquiry — neither of which the sources report has been opened.
Harris also sits on the Commission of Fine Arts, the federal panel reviewing Trump's proposed White House ballroom, a project Politico reports has drawn legal and political controversy. That panel's work on the ballroom continues.
More
Harp, a special assistant and executive assistant to Trump, is frequently at his side printing articles, social media posts and other material for him — earning her the nickname "the human printer."
Harris is deputy director of Oval Office operations and an executive assistant to the president. Trump appointed her to the Commission of Fine Arts, which oversees architectural and design decisions in Washington; former commissioners and preservation advocates questioned her qualifications for the seat, Politico reported.
Martin is Trump's communications adviser. She travels frequently with the president and often records and posts video of him, including footage of Trump dancing on a tarmac in Malaysia and greeting visitors in the Oval Office.
Poll
Should a president be allowed to give large personal cash gifts to his own staff?
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