Emoluments is not a face cream
19th May 2025 · 0 Comments
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution reads, “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
The “Emoluments Clause” includes luxury airplanes. No gifts from foreign potentates does not carry with it an exception for jet engines – even if Boeing is putting off the delivery of a new Air Force One until 2029. Incompetence on the part of a U.S. defense contractor does not justify violating the Constitution.
Even greater irony comes from the fact that – at times – the government of Qatar has sponsored Hamas and other Islamist terrorist pro-Palestinian organizations. The previous emir of Qatar, father of the current incumbent, called for the destruction of the state of Israel. This very antisemitic attitude, Donald Trump has pledged to fight at all costs.
In fact, the current emir has made criticisms of Israeli clearances in Gaza that, if he were a foreign college student at a U.S. university uttering a similar protest, the Trump administration would have him deported. The current emir has not supported Hamas or other terrorist organizations, admittedly, yet neither did Mohsen Mahdawi or Mahmoud Khalil. These Palestinian students at Columbia University were detained and faced deportation as a national security risk. Khalil sat in a jail cell for nearly eight weeks in Oakdale, Louisiana, missing the birth of his first child just for uttering an opinion – the same opinion as the emir.
So it’s OK to deport those who criticize the state of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, yet receiving an airplane worth millions of dollars from a family that has advocated for worse ranks as normal behavior?
Not according to the constitution, in any case.
This article originally published in the May 19, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
