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Miami Herald: I’m done trying to understand Trump supporters. Why don’t they try to understand me?


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Trump White House failed to report 117 foreign gifts and some are missing, House Democrats say

 

The White House under former President Donald Trump failed to report more than 100 gifts given to him and his family by foreign governments during his time in office, and some of those gifts remain missing, according to a report released Friday by Democratic staffers on the House Oversight Committee.

 

The missing gifts include a "larger-than-life-sized" painting gifted to Trump by the president of El Salvador, and golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan valued at more than $7,200, the 15-page report said. A decorated box valued at $450 that was gifted to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, is also unaccounted for, the report said. 

 

The missing items are among 117 foreign gifts to Trump and his family valued at $291,000 that the White House failed to report to the State Department as required by federal law, according to the report. The committee staffers relied on White House and National Archives records to determine which gifts weren't reported to the State Department.

 

The unreported items included gifts from Chinese President Xi Jinping, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others. 

 

"The discovery of these unreported foreign gifts raises significant questions about why former President Trump failed to disclose these gifts to the public, as required by law," the report said. 

 

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CBS News about the report. 

 

Under the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, foreign gifts given to federal officials or their families become the property of the U.S. government if their worth exceeds a certain value. (For most of Trump's time in office, the value was $415. It's currently $480.) The White House is responsible for reporting gifts given to the president, vice president and their families to the State Department, which publishes a report about all gifts given to government employees every year.

 

The law stipulates that recipients can keep the gifts if they purchase them from the General Services Administration (GSA), but they are still required to be disclosed to the State Department. The rules are meant to prevent foreign governments from influencing U.S. officials.

 

Democrats on the committee said they would continue to investigate whether the gifts had any effect on U.S. foreign policy. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

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That Missing Trump Portrait? Found, Next to Some Old Yoga Mats.

 

After a tip, The Times located a portrait of Donald Trump given to him by El Salvador’s president and that Democrats were eager to account for. It was propped up in an obscure spot in a Trump hotel.

 

In the bowels of the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami, in a small space leading to electrical rooms, an enormous portrait of the 45th president of the United States rests on a piece of deteriorating purple-colored foam.

 

Stored next to a stack of old yoga mats, the former president’s portrait sits underneath a halogen light and the metal sheen of air ducts, propped between two doors with placards that read “ELECTRICAL ROOM No Storage.”

 

The tiny room is overwhelmed by the grandiose portrait, standing about eight feet tall and featuring a grinning Donald J. Trump.

 

While the portrait has apparently sat there ignored for months, back in Washington, it is at the center of a debate over the laws and ethics covering presidential gifts.

 

Just last week, the artwork was listed as one of about 100 gifts from foreign governments, worth over $250,000 in total, that went missing after Mr. Trump vacated the White House, according to a report released by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

 

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