From the Daily Caller: Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz on Tuesday detailed two reasons President Donald Trump would probably be able to keep a 747 reportedly being gifted to the United States.
Qatar offered Trump the $400 million Boeing 747-8 for modification into a VC-25 configuration to serve as Air Force One, with the jet being donated to Trump’s presidential library after his term in office ends. Dershowitz, on “The Dershow,” noted that the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” something cited by some critics, actually would not prohibit the gift to the United States government.
“Okay, here’s what the Constitution says: No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States,” Dershowitz said. “In other words, we don’t have sirs and knights, or anything like that. So we can’t grant titles of nobility and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, that means the president, shall without the consent of Congress, and this is the key, without the consent of Congress, accept any present, emoluments, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state. Now, obviously, Qatar has the king. Oh, I guess he’s the emir, doesn’t say emir, he’s the emir, I know, I met him three times, the emir of Qatar, I know he’s an emir and I guess he comes under the category of king, prince or foreign state.”
“Now this means no person shall receive the gift,” Dershowitz said. “We know that gifts are given to governments all the time… when you go to the Oval Office, where the White House, you see all over the place, gifts that have been given by foreign governments to the White House, great portraits of Winston Churchill and other things that are gifts the British government or other governments have been given to the United States. But when the incumbent president or any officer leaves, he doesn’t take the gifts with him, he leaves them. There have been a couple of occasions where the presidents of taken a few gifts, for example, letters they take letters now letters could be worth a fortune… I think presidents have taken some of those, but mostly they go to the Library of Congress or to the Smithsonian or to the presidential libraries.”
Explaining that presidential libraries become the property of the Smithsonian Institute, and of the United States government, Dershowitz said, “…if the emir of Qatar or the Qatari state gives the president of the United States a $400 million dollar airplane, that is not a violation of the emoluments clause, it’s perfectly constitutional.”
WATCH his full comments in the video below:
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