(SeaPRwire) –
By: Gavin Thorne
That $400 million Boeing 747 Qatar gave Trump last year was never a “simple government-to-government” deal, no matter how many times Qatari officials or White House press staff repeat that line. We’re already seeing the first cracks in that lie play out publicly, from the secret mid-trip plane swap at the recent NATO summit to the DOJ subpoenas sent to New York Times reporters who broke the security flaw story. This isn’t just a minor ethics violation. It’s a national security fiasco playing out in broad daylight for anyone willing to look past the spin.
The jet was formally accepted by the Pentagon last May, over repeated objections from federal ethics officials and even some Republicans in Congress. The Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause explicitly bans federal officials from taking gifts from foreign governments without explicit congressional signoff. Trump claims the jet belongs to the U.S. Air Force, not him, but openly says it will be transferred to his personal presidential library once he leaves office. The White House initially claimed the plane was fully secured for presidential travel earlier this summer.
Earlier this month, Trump switched from the new jet to the older Air Force One mid-trip home from the NATO summit held in Turkey. The New York Times first reported the swap was a Secret Service order tied to rising hostilities with Iran following the collapse of a recent ceasefire. Trump publicly claimed the unscheduled detour to RAF Mildenhall to switch planes was just to show the jet off to U.S. troops stationed there. He later admitted the flight was “dangerous” in an offhand comment about Iranian threats, directly contradicting his earlier statement.
Two separate fights are playing out behind closed doors right now over the future of the jet. First, there’s the ongoing clash between the Secret Service and the White House communications team over how to spin the plane’s well-documented security gaps. Multiple major outlets have confirmed the new jet lacks critical anti-missile systems and full mobile command center capabilities the existing Air Force One fleet has. The Air Force initially claimed retrofits would cost less than $400 million, but independent security experts put the real number north of $1 billion.
Second, there’s the growing backlash over the DOJ subpoenas sent to New York Times reporters who first broke the security flaw story. The move is widely seen as a clear warning to other media outlets not to dig deeper into the jet’s origins or unpublicized security gaps. Government watchdog groups are already filing multiple lawsuits to get access to redacted records of the gift acceptance process and the full retrofit contract with L3Harris Technologies. The White House has repeatedly refused to release any details of what the upcoming month-long fall upgrades will include.
By the time all required retrofits are complete, this “free” jet will end up costing U.S. taxpayers more than twice the original sticker price of the aircraft itself.
Author bio: Gavin Thorne, an investigative journalist tracking special interests and legislative affairs based in Washington, D.C.