By John Hudson, Natalie Allison, Dan Lamothe, Ellen Nakashima — Despite claims by the Defense Department to the contrary, legal teams representing the U.S. and Qatari governments have not finalized an agreement for transferring the luxury Boeing 747-8 jetliner that President Donald Trump wants for Air Force One amid outstanding requests by Qatar for Washington to clarify the transaction’s terms, said officials familiar with the matter.
Qatar is insisting that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Doha specify that the aircraft’s transfer was initiated by the Trump administration and that Qatar is not responsible for any future transfers of the plane’s ownership, these people said.
The delay reflects lingering concerns about legal liability stemming from the White House maneuver to transform what was originally a sale between two countries into a “gift” that Trump continues to tout as a major deliverable from his recent trip to the Middle East.
“[I] got a beautiful big magnificent free airplane for the United States Air Force,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “Very proud of that.”
The outstanding legal work is not expected to scuttle the plane deal, the officials said, but the clarifications are likely to invite further scrutiny of the administration’s claims about how the deal originated.
Trump initially said it was Qatar that reached out and offered him the luxury jet free of charge. In fact, it was the Trump administration that first approached Qatar this winter about acquiring the plane through a sale after the president made clear to aides that he was upset about delays of two Boeing jets purchased during his first term for $3.9 billion, officials said. Discussion about the sale later evolved into Qatar agreeing to provide the plane as a gift, a development reported previously by CNN and the New York Times.
A White House official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, confirmed that the details of the plane transfer are still being finalized.
Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the White House, said there is no question, however, that the plane will be given to the United States free.
“As the president has said, this will be a sovereign-to-sovereign gift to the U.S. Air Force,” Kelly said in a statement to The Washington Post.
In recent weeks, Qatar has faced intense criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for the luxury jet arrangement. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and a group of fellow Democrats introduced legislation to block $1.9 billion in arms sales to Doha unless the offer was rescinded.
“It’s an illegal bribe that the President of the United States is champing at the bit to accept. That’s unconstitutional and not how we conduct foreign policy,” Murphy said at the time.
House Democrats, led by Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-New York), have introduced their own legislation that would block federal funds from being used to transfer a foreign country’s plane to the U.S. government or to Trump’s presidential library, as administration officials suggested he would do upon leaving office.
Democrats were particularly outraged about plans for the jet, appraised at roughly $180 million, to be transferred to Trump’s presidential library. Trump suggested on Wednesday that his critics were wrong to worry about that, noting that the mega jet would be far too large for personal use.
“They tried to say, ‘Oh, it’s Trump’s airplane,’” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Oh, yeah, sure. It’s too big. It’s frankly, it’s too big. Much too big.”
White House Counsel David Warrington, however, wrote a memo in early March stating that the Defense Department could accept a gift of the plane from Qatar in two phases, initially to the U.S. government and then later to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation once Trump left office, said two people familiar with the matter.
It had appeared that the legal work was finalized last week after Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement that the “secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations.” But the last communication between the legal teams was May 9, and they had not concluded their work, officials said.
The Defense Department declined to comment.
Trump’s determination to complete the deal has been apparent to his aides since he toured the aircraft on Feb. 15 at the Palm Beach International Airport and admired its interior, officials said. “They’re giving it to me,” Trump remarked to those around him.
Trump “loved it,” when he saw the aircraft in person, finding it far more updated, modern and spacious than the existing planes used for Air Force One, and appreciating that there were “more work stations” available on the new jet for him and his aides to use, a second White House official said.
Scrutiny of the plane deal since it was announced, just before Trump’s visit to Qatar, has not deterred the president or his team, the White House official added. “Everyone thinks that we’re scared of the plane situation, that we’re not really going to do it,” the official said. “We’re looking forward to it. Everyone is going to love it. The press is going to love it. We’re not cowardly.”
The Trump administration has commissioned the defense contractor L3Harris to retrofit the Qatari plane and bring it into compliance with the rigorous safety and security standards for presidential transport. The work is to be done in Texas.
After Trump toured the jet, Air Force officials reviewed the aircraft and found that it was “very poorly maintained” and would require millions of dollars just to bring it up to satisfactory maintenance conditions, said one person familiar with the matter. The Air Force assessed then that there was no way the jet could ferry the president in its current state.
The Air Force estimated then that it could cost $1.5 billion to meet those requirements. To then remove the military gear and convert it for civilian use after Trump leaves office could cost an estimated $500 million, said two people familiar with the matter.
One of these officials said it was unclear if those estimates still hold true, because the president has the authority to waive certain requirements, former U.S. officials said.
“If the president said, ‘I want this in a year and a half, and I don’t care what capabilities it has as long as it’s a luxury flying palace with my colors on it,’” then it can be done, said former Air Force secretary Frank Kendall. But he’ll have to waive some security requirements, which he can do, Kendall said. “He’s the commander in chief. Nobody’s going to make him have those features.”
