The eclectic list ranges from golf clubs given to Trump by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a 2018 World Cup soccer ball gifted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a gold-plated collar of Horus, the falcon-headed ancient Egyptian god, given by Egypt’s president, a large painting of Trump from the president of El Salvador, and a $6,400 collar of King Abdulaziz al Saud, a ceremonial honor from Saudi Arabia, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The dozens of gifts are worth in sum an estimated $50,000 or more, according to people familiar with the request. The committee has asked the archives to check whether the gifts are among the items transferred there from the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency as required by law, according to those familiar with the request. The committee is also seeking records from Trump’s team about its record keeping, a Trump adviser said.
It’s not clear why the Oversight Committee made the request for these specific items; a spokesperson for the committee declined to comment except to say the investigation is ongoing. The Archives also declined to comment, and it’s unclear where the agency is in the process of trying to find these items and which gifts, if any, on the list were properly accounted for.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment, nor did officials who handled gifts in the Trump administration.
The search comes as Trump faces an FBI investigation into whether he and his aides mishandled classified documents after agents recovered troves of records from his Mar-a-Lago home, including highly sensitive intelligence regarding China and Iran.
This summer, the Oversight committee launched its own probe at the behest of its chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), into whether Trump properly followed the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, a 1966 law that prohibits presidents and other government officials from personally keeping gifts from foreigners worth more than $415 unless they pay for them.
Under the law, there is no specific criminal penalty for someone who improperly retains the gifts. But ethics experts said that criminal action might be warranted depending on the circumstances.
“If you have a very valuable item that you are obligated by law to turn over to the federal government and you fail to do that, I don’t know that would preclude a criminal action — we’ve just never seen it done,” said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at CREW, an ethics watchdog organization.
The Oversight committee’s request to the Archives includes items that were received by Trump’s family members but may not have been properly reported to the State Department; items that were documented as potentially in the Trumps’ executive residence in the White House, the West Wing, or other locations — for example, Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago — near the end of the administration; and items likely gifted in 2020, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The New York Times first reported that the State Department could not fully account for gifts Trump and other White House officials received during their final year in office because the White House failed to provide the agency with a list of what officials received from foreign governments before leaving office. The office was in “total disarray,” according to testimony taken by the committee.
Now, Maloney’s committee is seeking to account for specific gifts. The sprawling…
Read More: Trump’s gifts from foreign leaders under scrutiny from House Oversight committee
