Report: Trump didn’t follow law on foreign gifts

Missing items include larger-than-life painting and golf equipment

Several gifts given by foreign countries to Donald Trump during his presidency are unaccounted for in government records, according to a report released Friday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which detailed ways in which the Trump White House had failed to follow the law in how it handled gifts.

The missing items included a $3,040 driver and $460 putter given to Trump by then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and “a larger-than-life-sized painting” of Trump given to him by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, according to the report.

A decorated box given to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is also missing, the report said. The box was valued at $450.

The Trump White House, the report said, failed to properly document more than 100 gifts that had been given to Trump; his wife, Melania; Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump. Those gifts were turned over to the government and ultimately accounted for in records but were never publicly reported, as required by law.

Each government department and agency is required to submit a list to the State Department of gifts over $415 its officials received from foreign governments. Officials can keep those gifts if they are willing to reimburse the government their appraised value.

The measure is intended to ensure foreign governments do not gain undue influence over U.S. officials.

“It’s so much in Donald Trump’s character to violate the entire regime governing gifts from foreign states,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the committee’s top Democrat.

“Trump is exactly someone who the framers had in mind” when they included the emoluments clauses in the Constitution,” Raskin said.

Departing administrations typically provide the State Department with a list of gifts they received in their final year to ensure they have followed the law. The Trump White House failed to do this.