The country’s government ethics experts must be very, very tired. Over and over during these first months of the Trump administration, the president’s and his lackeys’ actions have forced them to wearily “raise questions” over the moves’ legality and ethical propriety. Raising so many is exhausting! And now, with reports over the weekend that the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar is preparing to gift a lavishly tricked out 747 worth several hundred million dollars to Trump for use as Air Force One, those experts once again are tasked with lifting those questions high above their heads for all to see. If only they too had some sort of free flying palace, with plenty of space to load up ethical questions to be raised into the sky where they belong.
“The highly unusual — unprecedented — arrangement is sure to raise questions about whether it is legal for the Trump administration… to accept such a valuable gift from a foreign power,” wrote ABC News, which first reported the potential massive bribe, sorry, gift. Not only will Trump get to use the plane and its literal millions of places to hide any number of spying devices while in office, but apparently the plan is to then donate it to his presidential library for his continued use after his term is up.
“[E]thics experts are raising concerns,” said the Washington Post. The BBC didn’t actually ask any, but assumed that the clear violation of the Constitution is “likely to raise legal and ethical questions among critics.” Only critics, though. NPR, like many others, noted that this would be among the largest gifts to the US government ever received, which “raises legal and ethical questions.”
It is important to note, of course, that Qatar’s government has denied that this is a done deal, though it acknowledges the talks to let Trump fly around on a golden Trojan horse are ongoing. The New York Times, unlike many others, at least noted the issue in its subheading — not the headline, though, where there seems to be universal agreement that even the ethics experts cannot raise questions high enough to land — noting that the pending gift “raises substantial ethical issues.”
Some mainstream outlets seemed to acknowledge how exhausted the ethics experts must be, opting to give them a break from their thankless question-raising task. NBC News in particular seemed sympathetic, noting in their headline just that Trump would accept the jet, that he will discuss the arrangement in a trip to Qatar this week in a subhead, that the “arrangement will be done according to U.S. and international laws, in observance of ethics rules” in the third paragraph, that White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt assures that the transaction will be done lawfully and that “President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency” in the seventh, and that “Democrats have criticized” the idea and that it would need Congressional approval in the tenth. Finally, the Ethics Knowers got the break they needed.
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