USA09 September, 20262 min read
Donald Trump Gave $155,000 Cash Gifts to Natalie Harp and Other White House Aides
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Four White House aides, including Natalie Harp, received cash gifts totaling $155,000. Harp, Martin, Harris received $45,000 each; Walt Nauta received $20,000.
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Cash gifts disclosed
President Donald Trump gave cash gifts totaling $155,000 to four White House aides, including Natalie Harp, according to personal financial disclosures from the aides published by the White House. ABC News reported that Trump gave $45,000 each to Natalie Harp, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris as "cash gift[s] for the holidays," while Walt Nauta received a $20,000 holiday gift.
The disclosures described the payments as "cash gift for the holidays" and showed Harp, Martin and Harris earn $150,000 a year, while Nauta makes $175,000 a year, according to ABC News. A White House official told ABC News that "The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards."
Ethics debate intensifies
CNN reported that John Ronquillo, an associate public policy professor at the University of Maryland, said the cash gift amount "should raise red flags for a lot of people, you know, who are watchdogs, who are ethics experts".
CNN also quoted Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, saying Trump’s cash gift is "likely" an example of a government employee receiving extra income on top of their government salary, which federal law prohibits.
Painter said, "If someone is your employee and you would give them a gift, it is almost certainly not a gift. It’s income," adding that the president and aides "can’t give a gift there."
CNN tied the spotlight on Harp to Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioning her by name and referencing "travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar."
What’s at stake next
The BBC said the White House described the gifts as personal in nature, unrelated to the staffers' work and legal under US law, and it quoted a White House official saying the president has "a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit." The BBC also reported that Cassandra Burke Roberston, a law professor and director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, said "it's not an easy call" to decide whether the cash gifts were ethical or not.
Reuters reported that the payments raised ethics concerns because federal employees are generally barred by statute from receiving compensation beyond their government salaries, and it described the gifts as equivalent to roughly one-third of the aides' federal salaries of $150,000 per year. Reuters added that Harp drew public scrutiny after the Washington Post reported that she and Nauta were in a catering truck that secretly moved Trump to a flight he took in July from Turkey to the United Kingdom amid concerns about potential threats from Iran.