Golf clubs and a $24,000 dagger: Trump failed to report dozens of foreign gifts | donald trump

Donald Trump’s White House reported no more than 100 gifts from foreign countries worth more than a quarter of a million dollars, according to a US government report, and several of those gifts – including a painting Trump’s life-size donated by the President of El Salvador and the Prime Minister’s golf clubs of Japan – are still missing.

The revelations came as part of a report released Friday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. The report details numerous unreported items, including 16 gifts from Saudi Arabia with a total value of over $45,000, including a dagger worth up to $24,000, and 17 gifts from India including expensive cufflinks, a vase and a $4,600 model of the Taj Mahal. .

The Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act requires that gifts over $480 given to the president, vice president, and their families by foreign officials be reported to the State Department. The House Democrats’ report, citing State Department records, says the number of gifts reported by Trump and his family is lower than the number disclosed by previous presidents.

The committee’s lead Democrat, Congressman Jamie Raskin, said the findings indicated “a shameless disregard for the rule of law and its systematic mishandling of large donations.”

In total, according to the report, although the White House reported some gifts to the State Department between 2017 and 2019, it did not report more than 100 foreign gifts with a total value of more than $250,000.

The report says federal officials were unable to locate a life-size painting of Trump that, according to internal White House correspondence, was commissioned by the president of El Salvador and delivered to the US Embassy. United States to El Salvador as a gift to Trump just before the 2020 election. According to the report, the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador alerted U.S. officials to the gift and requested assistance in shipping it.

The report says there are “no records of the disposition of the painting” by the National Archives and Records Administration or the General Services Administration, but some records suggest it may have been moved to Florida in July. 2021 as Trump property.

Thousands of dollars in golf clubs given to Trump in 2018 and 2019 by Shinzo Abe, then Prime Minister of Japan, are also missing.

The report is the result of a year-long investigation into Trump’s failure to disclose foreign gifts while in office, according to the Washington Post, and is 15 pages long.

“Today’s preliminary findings again suggest the Trump administration’s brazen disregard for the rule of law and its systematic mishandling of large donations from foreign governments, including many lavish personalized gifts that go well over the line. statutory in value but were never reported – some that are still missing today,” Raskin said in a statement.

He also said the committee “would remain committed to following the facts to determine the extent to which former President Trump broke the law or violated the constitution when he failed to report gifts and took possession of valuables. without paying the fair market price.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, released a statement saying “numerous articles were received before or after the administration,” the Post reported.

The Associated Press contributed reporting