President Donald Trump left Qatar on Air Force One on May 15 without finalizing a plan to accept a luxury 747.Alex Brandon/AP
President Donald Trump insists that accepting a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s ruling family would not amount to a huge bribe. That’s because this opulent new Air Force One would go to his “library” when he leaves office.
That, at least, is what the president claimed amid concern that he might make personal use of a library-owned aircraft. Disputing that, he has suggested the plane would instead serve as a museum piece, like the decommissioned former Air Force One displayed at President Ronald Reagan’s library facility.
The president, or unnamed aides, are regularly attempting to wave off ethical concerns by saying that various huge donations will eventually go to the “library.”
That is a curious claim. Will a so-called “flying palace” that US taxpayers may pay more than $1 billion to upgrade really just be parked at a to-be-determined site in Florida after just a few years of use? It’s not yet clear. Facing rare bipartisan criticism over his plan to accept what experts call an unconstitutional emolument, Trump left Qatar Thursday without a public announcement finalizing a deal for the plane.
But Trump’s explanation is part of a trend. The president, or unnamed aides, are regularly attempting to wave off ethical concerns by saying that various huge donations will eventually go to the “library.”
Trump’s inaugural committee hasn’t said how much remains from the record-shattering $250 million raised via fealty displays from corporate chieftains. But the balance will go to the library, a “person close to the inauguration” told the Wall Street Journal. Proceeds from the million-dollar-a-plate fundraising dinners and $5 million-one-on-one meetings with the president—organized by the pro-Trump MAGA Inc PAC—are “all going to the library,” a “person familiar with the dinners” told Wired.
Then there are Meta (owner of Facebook) and Disney (owner of ABC News), which settled dubious lawsuits Trump had filed against them by pledging $22 million and $15 million, respectively, to Trump’s presidential library foundation.
There is ample reason to be wary about how the money could ultimately be used. For one, these are pledges to give money to a organization that is only partly established.
Disney, in its a settlement actually said it would transfer settlement funds “to a presidential foundation and museum” before one existed. The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library was incorporated in Florida a few weeks later, apparently as a way to accept the settlement. (Meta’s January settlement, which Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said “looks like a bribe,” is also reportedly bound for that foundation.)
Modern presidential libraries are set up by nonprofit foundations. They often take the form of hagiographic museums run in partnership with the National Archives. Trump’s library foundation has not indicated if it has yet sought IRS recognition as a nonprofit, and it hasn’t publicly announced a board of directors.
Trump’s record with non-profit organizations leads to additional reasons for concern. In 2019, a New York judge ordered his nonprofit Trump Foundation to pay $2 million to an array of charities—and then to dissolve entirely—after finding Trump misused the foundation to further his political and business interests. In 2022, the Trump Organization and Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a suit brought by the DC attorney general charging that the committee illegally misused nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family by “grossly overpaying” Trump companies “for use of event space at the Trump Hotel for certain inaugural events.”
Trump, of course, was indicted in 2023 for hiding highly classified government documents he had removed from the White House. Trump reportedly insisted the federal records, which belonged to the National Archives, were “mine.” Whether the 747 and the millions in donations and settlement money truly end up benefiting the future library—which would be run in part by the very same National Archives—remains to seen.
“If past is precedent, I don’t know that we should take them at the word until we see how the money is spent,” Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Mother Jones.
Regardless, the library itself is hardly an ethical panacea. Gifts to presidential libraries “fall between the cracks of campaign finance regulations and rules governing ethics in office,” Jacob Levy, a political theory professor at McGill University, wrote in a recent op-ed arguing that presidential fundraising for libraries while in office creates a “loophole you could fly a plane through.”
Levy noted that the foundations are bound only by loose rules applied to US nonprofits. Critics have labeled presidential libraries, generally, “a scam.”
“The fact that, according to President Trump, the plane would not remain in service to the United States but would rather be donated to his presidential library after his term concludes further raises the possibility that this ‘nice gesture’ is intended as a bribe to Donald Trump,” Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee charged in a letter to Trump’s attorney general and White House counsel. The plan, they argued, was “corrupt.”
Though legally Trump cannot simply pocket funds and assets intended for the library, he faces few other limits. He could choose to “take a salary,” Levy told Mother Jones. “He can fly around on the plane.”
Trump’s ability to raise donations that he could later personally benefit from creates a major ethical issue, Levy argued. “The fact that he can solicit those contributions” from people currying his favor during his presidency, Levy said, “makes them corruption.”
