The Trump administration has faced justified criticism. Folks are looking closely at how gifts that former President Donald Trump received during his first term were reported. According to recent reports, approximately 100 gifts provided to Trump by foreign countries are unaccounted for. This has led some to worry about the White House’s ability to keep records. Yet the administration is already being badgered for not properly logging these gifts, directly undermining its purported promise of full transparency.
Gifts from foreign heads of state have a proud tradition in the White House. Find often-striking examples from every administration here. Later in 1997, Azerbaijan’s President Heydar Aliyev presented an amazing six-by-five-foot carpet to President Bill Clinton – it is an unusual gift. Of course, the carpet depicts their faces in mind-blowing detail. This one-of-a-kind gift required a high level of production artistry. Twelve (female) workers worked around the clock in eight-hour shifts to get it done on time, a job that normally takes several months.
Though dazzling gifts have always fluttered their way into presidential hands, the logistical blunders during Trump’s presidency jumped out. The painting of Trump that the president of El Salvador recently gifted to the State Department. By contrast, Japan’s Prime Minister gave more than $250,000 worth of golf clubs. These objects have helped foster the conversation on this important and continuing topic of transparency in White House gift-giving.
U.S. law allows federal workers to keep foreign gifts under $480. Those gifts must be recognized, recorded as revenue, and tracked according to an established system of internal controls. For example, in 2005, former Vice President Dick Cheney accepted gifts valued at twice the total of then-President George W. Bush’s! This jarring juxtaposition underscores the differences in record-keeping between administrations.
Elite-ized tradition of extravagant gifts gouged mainly during the years of George W. Bush’s presidency. He got some pretty good gifts too, like a bike from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and a dog from the Bulgarian head of state. Because of restrictions on food and beverage gifts, the puppy went immediately to the National Archives. In 2005, that same ruckus landed Bush 300 pounds of raw Argentine lamb. The Secret Service probably had no choice but to destroy it in order to comply with official White House protocol.
Presidential libraries, including Barack Obama’s, have an intriguing assortment of gifts. Among them are sterling cufflinks and a British double-decker bus pencil sharpener. These collections are remarkable not only on an individual basis, but as a testament to the wide range of offerings presidents receive while in office.
Even amid the firestorm over Trump’s golf gifts and lousy record keeping, his administration advocated for more openness. They labored to project a very public, fluttery, transparent butterfly image. Critics contend that the holes in record-keeping make this assertion hollow. They raise fundamental issues about transparency and accountability through the management of presidential gifts.