A giant portrait of former President Donald Trump given to the White House by the President of El Salvador is among gifts totaling $300,000 that have gone missing or gone unreported, according to Democrats in monitoring committee.
The report includes the portrait among a series of undeclared gifts – including $48,000 from Saudi Arabia alone and a golf driver worth nearly $4,000.
The portrait was presented as a gift from Salvadoran President Nayib. He passed it on to the Trump-appointed ambassador to the country, Ron Johnson, a veteran CIA officer, according to emails released by the committee.
He sent the image to an aide to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, writing that it was “packaged and ready to ship to President Trump.”
“I just need to know where to ship it,” Johnson added.
A Trump aide asked what the best address was for shipping, and another aide said it “ships to WH!”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a report saying former President Donald Trump and his family members failed to report gifts totaling nearly $300,000.
Kushner himself simply wrote: “Can we take care of it – fine.”
An image in the appendix shows the Salvadoran president giving a thumbs up next to a portrait of Trump that starts at knee level. The president’s head is slightly higher than the president’s, giving the portrait the height of a grown man.
Government rules require officials to report gifts, even of nominal value, to the State Department, which retains and records them.
Trump’s White House “did not report more than 100 foreign gifts that were given to the President and First Family that exceeded the reporting threshold, including some gifts valued in the thousands of dollars,” the report said. staff, produced over a year by the committee where Rep. Jamie Raskin is now the top Democrat.
“The committee discovered 16 undeclared gifts to the Trump family with a total value of more than $45,000, including three gifts to President Trump and one gift to the President and First Lady. Undeclared gifts included a Saudi dagger worth up to $24,000 and two sets of swords with a total value of $8,800. General Services Administration (GSA) records showed that Mr. Kushner purchased and retained five Saudi gifts, including the dagger,” according to the report.
Report claims expensive golf driver gifted by late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is missing
The report also mentions a valuable sword and dagger
According to the Democratic report, ‘There is no record of the layout of the painting. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had no record of this painting and the GSA also had no record for the purchase of this gift.
But transitional documents’ showing Donald J. Trump’s office correspondence director certified ‘full compliance with the final disposition of gifts’ in April 2021, records obtained by the committee suggest the portrait may have been moved to Florida as “property”. of the former president” in July 2021,” the report suggests.
The document also refers to “reports” of a $3,755 golf driver presented to Trump by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who died last year.
Federal Register listings showed no reported foreign gifts to President Trump from Prime Minister Abe in 2017, 2018, or 2019, but internal White House records reveal Prime Minister Abe donated additional golf clubs to President Trump during visits to Trump International Golf Club and Kasumigaseki Country Club in 2017 and 2018,’ staff reported, including a $460 putter and driver #3,040.
The Archives’ has no records of these golf clubs and does not have the golf clubs in their custody. The GSA also has no record of golf clubs purchased. The Committee is still working to determine the ultimate destination of these gifts,” the report states.
But there may be errors. The report says the disposition of an Egyptian gift to Kushner remains “unknown.”
A footnote refers to “a silver-decorated box estimated to be worth $450 received from Kamal Abbas, General Coordinator of the Center for Unions and Workers’ Service in 2018.”
But a former official pointed to a government document that said the box resides in the Presidential Materials Division, along with the name of the safe – 45 – and a box number.
He describes it as “personal equipment, a rectangular box with a hinged lid and a certificate indicating that it is ‘pure silver’. However, the Arabic inscriptions indicate that it is silver at 90%.
“Failures to disclose gifts from foreign governments were much broader than previously known and spanned the entire Trump administration,” according to the report.
The total included donations totaling $48,000 from Saudi Arabia. The donations came from a series of powerful leaders and governments.
“Undeclared foreign gifts include gifts from President Xi Jinping of China, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and other foreign government officials,” the report said.
It happened over the course of a week when Oversight Chairman’s Representative James Comer released banking information on a Hunter Biden associate, including a wire transfer showing that Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie Biden , had received $35,000 in transfers around the time a Hunter associate received $3 million from a Chinese company.
“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.
Undeclared gifts from Trump totaled $150,000, and undeclared gifts from the First Family and Trump totaled more than $250,000, according to the report.
