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The Pentagon has formally accepted a $400mn luxury jumbo jet gifted by Qatar that will be used as the US president’s plane, despite bipartisan concerns about ethics and security.
Donald Trump wants the aircraft to be used as Air Force One while Boeing completes two new jets that have been long delayed, but the gift will need to be modified before it can fly the president.
“The Secretary of Defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States.”
An Air Force spokesperson said it was “preparing to award a contract to modify a Boeing 747 aircraft for executive airlift. Details related to the contract are classified”.
The Air Force, which is responsible for retrofitting the plane, did not respond to questions about how long it will take to complete the process.
A person briefed on the talks said the deal was not finalised, adding that the “details are being worked on” even as the US officially accepted the plane.
Democrats have heavily criticised the acceptance of the jet.
Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the US Senate, on the chamber’s floor on Wednesday called the plane “the largest foreign gift to an American president in modern history”, saying it was “outrageous” and “screams national security risk. It is bribery in broad daylight”.
He then tried and failed to pass legislation that would prohibit using taxpayer funds to procure or modify foreign aircraft for presidential use.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, a member of the Senate armed services committee, said on Tuesday that there were “very real operational security risks” from accepting such a gift from a foreign government, and that she worried “about the pressures you may be under to cut corners on operational security”.
Senator Mazie Hirono, who also sits on the committee, said Trump was “using the DoD to accept, you could even call it launder, an impermissible gift to skirt constitutional limitations”.
Some Republicans have expressed similar concerns. “The transaction strikes me as being rife with political espionage, ethical and constitutional problems,” Senator Susan Collins told NBC News last week.
Trump defended accepting the Boeing 747 on Wednesday, saying “it’s a great thing” during a bilateral meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. He also said that the plane was being given “not to me, [but] to the United States Air Force so they could help us out, because we need an Air Force One”.
Last week Trump said it would be “stupid” to say “‘no, we don’t want a free, very expensive aeroplane”.
The US president also took a swipe at Boeing for being “a little bit late” on delivering the two Air Force One jets under production, which are years behind schedule. The aerospace and defence company has long been a target of Trump’s ire.
While testifying before the armed services committee on Tuesday, the new Air Force secretary, Troy Meink, said the plane required “significant modifications” to become the new Air Force One but that the Air Force was well positioned to make the necessary changes.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani defended his government’s move on Tuesday, insisted it was not a bribe and said the arrangement was “a normal thing that happens between allies”. “I don’t know why people are thinking that this is considered as bribery or . . . that Qatar wants to buy an influence with this administration.”
Additional reporting by Andrew England in London