[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 13, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2880-S2881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 219
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, a lot of Americans are watching this
spectacle: a $400 million gift from Qatar, which President Trump has
called a ``palace in the sky.''
It would be for his personal use now and then afterward when he is a
private citizen. And they are wondering, Isn't there a law that
prevents it? Isn't there some statute that stops this corruption--a
gift to the President from a foreign power that makes him beholden for
his personal benefit and use?
And the answer to the American people is, yes, there is a law. In
fact, it is in the Constitution. It is a specific clause. It is called
the foreign emoluments clause. It states:
[N]o 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.
And the reason for this clause, which was written by the Founders
centuries ago, is so powerfully shown today. At the beginning of our
Nation, we were a small country, potentially influenced by big foreign
powers--England, France.
The Founders were concerned that our Presidents or other officials
could be bought, could be influenced, could be pressured by those
foreign powers. So they specifically wrote into the statutes a measure
that protected our small Nation then.
It applies equally now. In fact, now, it is even more a protection of
our national security. This plane is emblematic of a core,
metastasizing corruption, an economic cancer that has infected the
White House, but it is also emblematic of a national security threat
from nations who would buy our President--maybe not signed, sealed, and
delivered but exert undue influence.
In fact, the national security threat is even greater from this
plane, which would have to be taken apart--a huge expense to American
taxpayers--literally taken apart down to its shell.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I can tell you that
there are foreign powers all over the world who would like nothing
better than a Qatar plane to be carrying the President of the United
States--potentially bugged, infiltrated by systems that could be hacked
by them, not just by Qatar or other Mideast nations.
It is a threat to our national security to have the President of the
United States riding in this plane unless it is, in effect, taken apart
and put back together with the systems and the safeguards that are
included on Air Force One.
This blatantly corrupt act shows that the President is just in it for
himself. In fact, that kind of equipping of the plane will take
billions of dollars of taxpayer money and years of work to bring this
aircraft up to the requirements--the minimal requirements--of Air Force
One, ready in time for the President to use it after he leaves office.
And President Trump won't even pay the transfer fees.
The reports that the U.S. Air Force will pay all of the costs related
to retrofitting and transferring this plane to the United States, even
to the Presidential library, show the blatant corruption here.
Accepting the plane is bad enough, but foisting on taxpayers the
expense of retrofitting it and updating it and then transferring it to
his foundation is an insult to every American.
And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to say it
is only Democrats who are objecting, but, in fact, MAGA media
personalities strongly agree. One described the planned gift of this
plane as a ``bribe''--pretty right on. Another called it
``indefensible''--also right.
Even Laura Loomer opposes this gift. She described this incident as a
``stain'' on the Trump administration. I never thought I would say that
she is right, too, but it is a stain not on the Trump administration
alone. It is a stain on America. It is a stain on our national honor.
It is a stain on the integrity of the greatest country in the history
of the world.
Foreign governments have figured out how to get to Donald Trump. It
is through his wallet, his vanity, and his bank account.
It is not just this ``palace in the sky.'' The Qatari Government has
signed a $5.5 billion deal with the Trump Organization to build a
luxury golf resort in Qatar, complete with Trump-branded beach side
villas and an 18-hole golf course.
And it is not just Qatar. President Trump has also pursued new
business deals with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and others, including
Serbia.
On May 1, Trump's cryptocurrency firm announced that an investment
fund backed by the United Arab Emirates would be using President
Trump's digital coins to complete a $2 billion transaction. Through
this deal, President Trump and his family stand to gain hundreds of
millions of dollars from a foreign state, and their ``cryptocurrency
empire,'' if I can use that term loosely, which includes World Liberty
Financial, as well as their meme coin, $TRUMP, is making hundreds of
millions of dollars--literally, hundreds of millions of dollars, for
example, through the transfer fee involved in FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. That
is the reason that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Minority Staff, which I head, has written asking for more facts from
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT and World Liberty Financial.
But this crypto corruption is, again, just one more of the ongoing
corrupt con games that President Trump has helmed. LIV Golf, backed by
the Saudi Government, will host a tournament at Trump National Doral
resort later this year, and the Trump Organization has announced new
real estate developments on government-owned land in Serbia and
elsewhere.
Now, there is a kind of fundamental principle here, and it goes back
to the Founders. The American President is supposed to work for the
American people, not for his own enrichment. In foreign policy and on
the international stage, he is supposed to represent the United States
of America, not his own
[[Page S2881]]
business interests, or any foreign state or any business privately.
And that is what the emoluments clause is meant to guarantee. It
protects our national security, as well as the integrity of our
political system.
When President Trump, brazenly and shamefully, flouts the
constitutional protections implemented by the Founders to avoid
improper influence, he violates one of the core principles of our
Constitution. He has never come to Congress asking for any permission
for any of these deals; that is for sure. His willingness to use the
privileges of his office to enrich himself and his family seems to know
no bounds. Congress simply cannot stand aside because Congress is the
one who has to enforce the emoluments clause.
I know. I went to court during the first Trump term. I organized many
of my colleagues in both the House and the Senate to ask the courts to
enforce the emoluments clause, and we won in district court. Our case
failed in the court of appeals because of lack of standing; that is to
say, we lacked authorization, specific permission from the House or the
Senate to go forward.
There were 214 other Members of Congress who joined in my lawsuit to
enforce this clause. There is no other party that is an enforcer for
this clause, and if the President refuses to seek our approval for
acceptance of these foreign benefits, we have no choice but to go to
court again.
I am hopeful that my Republican colleagues will join me in saying:
Well, we may be wrong about all of this corruption, about what
Blumenthal is saying about the violation of the foreign emoluments
clause, but let's let a court decide. Let's bring it to a judge on the
Federal court--because in my view this violation of law is so abjectly
and obviously clear that it demands an answer from the courts.
Accordingly, in a moment, I will ask for unanimous consent to pass a
resolution that would direct Senate legal counsel to file a lawsuit on
behalf of the U.S. Senate to enforce the emoluments clause.
And I will just close by saying to my Republican colleagues: I
challenge you. I challenge you to prove that you are more than just
lackeys to President Trump, that you are just more than automatic
approvers of whatever he does, his self-enrichment schemes, and show
that the Senate still has spine, still has self-respect, and still has
respect for the Founders, who said that no one is above the law.
No one can brazenly and shamefully commit corruption that endangers
the national security of the United States of America and makes our
Nation vulnerable to this kind of interference from foreign powers,
whether they are in the Middle East or Russia or anywhere around the
globe.
And so, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that
the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 219, submitted
earlier today, and that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be
agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be made and laid upon the
table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. TUBERVILLE. Reserving the right to object, I have been around
here 5 years now, and I am used to attacks on a lot of people. But for
the most successful President in the first 4 months, I have never seen
like these attacks from my Democratic colleagues. I don't understand
it. And it really isn't an attack on President Trump. It is an attack
on the American people, because this body itself, years before I got
here, passed the ability to build two of these planes for the President
of the United States to use. By the way, they are $2.5 billion each.
That is pretty dang expensive.
I think if you asked the American people if they would take out a
swap of a $400 million airplane instead of $2.1 billion and maybe add
some changes to it--obviously, as I said earlier, I don't know if
President Trump will ever fly on this plane. Maybe, in the future, it
is for the next President, because it is going to take a while for
security purposes. But we just need to be really careful here and make
sure we understand the American people have the decision here, not
politicians. And I guarantee, if you ask the people that pay the taxes
in this country, they would take the alternative to spending $2.5
billion on an airplane when you could get one for $400 million and
possibly add a few million to it to upgrade it.
So it is just another attack on the best and the greatest President
in my lifetime, who fights for the American people, who does things for
the American people, who does things to save money for the American
people. And hope to God he continues to do that for the next 3\1/2\
years he is in office.
So for those reasons, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, if President Trump is everything that
my colleague has just said, he never would have suggested this $400
million boondoggle. He never would have thought that the American
people should pay billions of dollars to retrofit the plane. He never
would have risked the American security in the threat that is posed by
foreign powers bugging or hacking the security devices or disabling the
mechanisms of this plane.
And if this President never flies on this plane, it will only be
because of the vocal and vehement protests that we are seeing, not only
on the floor of the U.S. Senate but across the country, from MAGA
personalities and commentators to everyday Americans who are aghast
that hundreds of millions--in fact, billions--of dollars will be spent
on this boondoggle that puts at risk American security. If President
Trump never takes possession of this plane, it will only be because he
has been embarrassed and shamed by our vehement and vocal protests
against doing it. And the reaction of everyday Americans has been one
of vehement objection.
But this plane is only the most visible and tangible evidence of a
corrupt administration--and, particularly, the crypto corruption, where
hundreds of millions of dollars are literally flowing into the bank
accounts and pockets of President Trump and his family. And everyday
Americans are suffering losses because of it.
The investors in his meme coin--tens of thousands of them--are
losers. They have lost money. And many other Americans are likely to
suffer losses as well. So the tangible impact of that crypto corruption
is real and present and ongoing.
And so I think enforcement of the emoluments clause through a lawsuit
brought by the Senate of the United States, authorized through this
resolution, is absolutely necessary and appropriate now.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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