Topline
Some legal experts have suggested President Donald Trump’s $45,000 cash gifts given to Natalie Harp and other White House aides could violate legal or ethical standards, though the White House has defended the payments as “entirely permissible” under the law because the gifts are unrelated to their government work.
Some legal experts think Trump’s $45,000 gifts to White House employees violate the law. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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Key Facts
Richard W. Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told Forbes the payments appear to be supplements of the employees’ government salaries, which would violate a federal statute.
A federal law prohibits federal employees from receiving a “supplementation of salary” from “any source other than the Government of the United States,” including “an individual, partnership, association, corporation, or other organization.”
“This is a classic case of supplementation of government salary,” Painter said, arguing the payments are not gifts and are not the same as an employer taking employees out to dinner or giving them a bottle of wine.
“You can’t have somebody coming into the government and people are writing them private checks to top off their government salary,” Painter said, adding it’s “not allowed, whether it’s the President of the United States or anybody else.”
Painter said part of the problem is the aides who received the payments had prior business relationships with Trump, as Harp worked for the Trump campaign and other aides worked for his political action committee, saying, “you can’t have former employers saying, ‘Well, we’ll top you off while you’re in government.’”
Barbara McQuade, a former United States attorney and a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School, said in a post on X the gifts “violate ethics rules, which exist to promote loyalty to the United States over loyalty to one person.”
Could Trump Face Penalties?
The statute that Painter argues the gifts violate carry potential penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. Painter said the statute of limitations for the offense is five years, suggesting Trump could be prosecuted by a future Justice Department after his term ends in 2029. “It’s a five year statute of limitations, you could have a future Justice Department come back and go after him,” Painter told Forbes, calling the payments a “really, really bad idea.”
What Has The White House Said About The Gifts?
The White House has defended the cash gifts, saying in a statement to multiple media outlets the payments “here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Washington Post that Trump has a “longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector.”
key background
Harp, an executive assistant to Trump, and two other government employees, communications advisor Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris, each disclosed $45,000 gifts from Trump in financial documents. All three referred to the gift as a “Cash Gift for Holidays.” The gifts represent nearly a third of each woman’s salary, as all three make $150,000 per year. The disclosure of the gifts also comes as Trump’s relationship with Harp has faced increased scrutiny. Harp’s closeness to Trump garnered attention after Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., mentioned Harp and attacked Trump in a speech last month, saying Trump just wants to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” Harp, 35, spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention and took a job on Trump’s 2024 campaign after leaving her anchor post at the right-wing One America News Network. Harp is reportedly known as the “human printer” within Trump’s inner circle, as she uses a portable printer to hand Trump hard copies of documents.
further reading
Trump Gave Natalie Harp And 2 Others $45,000 Each In Cash Gifts, Documents Show (Forbes)
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