Democrats Demand Immediate Independent Investigation Into Trump's $400 Million Bribe From Qatar

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) responded to reports that Trump will accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar by calling for an independent IG investigation into Trump's "gift."

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Donald Trump is being open with his corruption. His latest stunt is to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar which he will have converted at taxpayer expense to use as Air Force One while he is in office. Once Trump leaves office, he intends to take the jet with him and charge taxpayers again for the conversion of the jet to private use.

House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said on X that Trump’s grift is clearly unconstitutional:

Trump must seek Congress’ consent to take this $300 million gift from Qatar. The Constitution is perfectly clear: no present “of any kind whatever” from a foreign state without Congressional permission. A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift (and a grift).

Democrats aren’t stopping at telling the American people that what Trump is doing is wrong.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has formally requested that the independent Office of Inspector General investigative the legality of the “gift” to Trump.

Torres wrote in a letter:

I am writing to express alarm over reports that President Donald Trump is poised to accept a luxury aircraft—a Boeing 747 8—from the government of Qatar. The plane, so opulent it has been described as a “palace in the sky,” is set to be made available to President Trump for official use as Air Force One and then for private use once he leaves office.

With an estimated value of $400 million, the aerial palace would constitute the most valuable gift ever conferred on a President by a foreign government. The American people are witnessing, in real time, what can only be described as a “flying grift.”

Rather than enforcing ethics, the Attorney General has affixed the Department of Justice’s seal of approval to a transaction that flagrantly violates both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. That clause explicitly prohibits any person holding public office from accepting“any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”No one — not even President Trump — is above the law, let alone the Constitution.