WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has stalled Justice Department nominees from receiving final confirmation until President Trump’s administration comes clean about Qatar’s royal family offering a $400 million jumbo jet to replace Air Force One.
Schumer (D-NY) announced the move in a Senate floor speech Tuesday, slamming the president for celebrating the “palace in the sky” gift as “so corrupt that even [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would give a double-take.”
A hold will only delay — not block — the nominees from confirmation, with a simple majority vote of GOP senators able to overcome it. At least three are already on the calendar, Schumer’s office said.
The Democratic leader demanded that the Justice Department’s Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) unit give him details about how Qatar may be working on “deals” to benefit Trump, his family or their business interests.
“How is this gift not naked corruption?” the New York senator added, referencing multibillion-dollar deals for the Trump Organization to build a golf course in Qatar and a hotel and residential skyscraper in Dubai.
Attorney General Pam Bondi signed off on the Qatari jet and said it was “legally permissible,” ABC News reported — but Schumer expects her to testify before Congress on whether the transfer violates the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
Schumer also expressed concern about the national security implications — and potential further cost to US taxpayers — about accepting the plane from the foreign nation, which Trump had called “a funder of terrorism at a very high level” during his first term in 2017.
But the president cheered reports from ABC News and other outlets disclosing the Boeing 747-8 jet, calling it “a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE.”
“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” he posted on his Truth Social.
“We’re very disappointed that it’s taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One,” he also told reporters at the White House on Monday.
The jet is expected to be transferred to Trump’s presidential library foundation when he leaves office, sources told ABC.
Senate Democrats have already been throwing up procedural hurdles on cabinet officials and other Trump nominees, forcing Republicans to invoke cloture and take the longer path toward confirmation.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said his conference would do things “the hard way” if needed.
“Senator Schumer and his anti-law-and-order party are prioritizing politics over critical DOJ appointments, obstructing President Trump’s Make Safe Again agenda,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields added in a statement.
“Cryin’ Chuck must end the antics, stop Senate stonewalling, and prioritize the safety and civil rights of Americans.”
At least 31 foreign agents of Qatar are currently lobbying inside the US, according to the DOJ’s FARA database, including some principals who have registered since Trump’s inauguration for public relations on behalf of the Gulf nation and its embassy in Washington, DC, as well as a state-owned oil and gas firm.
“The American people overwhelmingly elected President Trump to nominate highly qualified candidates at the Department of Justice who will Make America Safe Again, and the Senate should do its part by confirming these nominees,” a spokesperson for the department said.
