'Longstanding practice': White House responds to Trump's $45K gifts to Natalie Harp, 3 aides

WASHINGTON, DC: The White House defended President Donald Trump’s holiday cash gifts to aides after the Washington Post reported ethics concerns about the payments Tuesday.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle on Wednesday, September 9, said Trump has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including employees and aides.

The newspaper reported the gifts after financial disclosures released late last week showed payments to Trump aides, including $45,000 received by Natalie Harp.

White House calls gifts permissible

“The president has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector,” Ingle told the outlet.

“The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards,” he said.

Harp, Communications Adviser Margo Martin, and Executive Assistant Chamberlain Harris each reported $45,000 cash gifts, listing them as “Cash Gift for Holidays.” 

Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, reported a $20,000 gift.

The $45,000 payments amount to about one-third of the $150,000 salaries earned by Harp, Martin, and Harris, according to the annual report to Congress cited by the Washington Post.

Trump's aides have worked with him for years

Harp, Martin, Harris, and Nauta all have ties to Trump dating to his first term, and all worked for him in Florida between his presidencies, the report said.

Harp, 35, has been known in the White House as the “human printer” because she carries a portable printer to provide Trump with hard copies of news.

Harp drew attention this summer after the outlet reported that she was among the aides who accompanied Trump on a catering truck during a concealed departure from Turkey following a potential threat.

Days later, Sen Jon Ossoff, D-Ga, said at a campaign rally that Trump would rather “travel with Natalie” than do his job, a remark that drew a White House response.

Martin, 31, works as a communications adviser who films Trump’s activities for social media, while Harris, 26, serves as Trump’s executive assistant and was appointed by Trump in February to the US Commission of Fine Arts.

Nauta, who earns $175,000, also accompanied Trump on the catering truck.

Ethics experts dispute the White House view

Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W Bush, told the Washington Post that the payments appear to violate a federal statute prohibiting supplementation of federal employees’ salaries from outside sources.

“He’s clearly trying to make it easier for them financially to work in government service at the White House,” Painter said. “You can’t do that.”

Painter added, “It’s not like tipping the doorman on Fifth Avenue. These are US government employees. If you want a job where you get tips, you shouldn’t be working for the US government.”

Don Fox, former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics during the Obama administration, offered a different assessment.

He said the available facts did not make it clear that the payments violated the supplementation prohibition.

Fox said the payments could fall under the prohibition if Trump gave them to employees who were considering leaving government because they could not live on their salaries.

Even if there were no violation, Fox called the payments “troublesome” because they could leave the aides feeling indebted to Trump.