Secrecy surrounds Trump’s Qatari dream jet in D.C. and Texas
Freedom of the Press Foundation sues Department of Justice over memo approving the $400 million ‘gift’ slated to be transformed into a temporary Air Force One.
By
Brandon Lingle,Staff Writer
Secrecy surrounding President Donald Trump’s Qatari dream jet, and his administration’s acceptance of it as a gift, has led a press freedom group to sue the Department of Justice.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit, filed the lawsuit July 28 in D.C. district court after the DOJ estimated it would take 620 days (more than 20 months) to produce Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memo that reportedly cleared the way for the government to take ownership of the jet.
The lawsuit over a Freedom of Information Act request that the foundation filed in May is the latest turbulence for Trump’s plan to use the Boeing 747-8 as a temporary Air Force One during the final part of his term. The Pentagon has said the cost of refurbishing the 13-year-old jet is classified, but estimates have been as high as $1 billion. After he leaves office, the craft is expected to go to the Trump presidential library foundation — in operational condition.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have blasted the plan to accept the multimillion-dollar “gift” from a foreign government as unethical and potentially illegal. The Air Force has said it will use leftover funds from its Sentinel nuclear missile program to fund the 747’s upgrades.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his Qatari equal reportedly formalized the “unconditional donation” in early July.
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Average processing time’
According to the complaint, the DOJ said 620 days is the “average processing time for requests” in its “expedited track.”
FOIA law requires federal agencies provide records that don’t fall under an exemption, or provide a legal explanation for not releasing the information, within 20 working days.
“It shouldn’t take 620 days to release a single, time-sensitive document,” Lauren Harper, the foundation’s Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, said in a statement. “How many flights could Trump have taken on his new plane in the same amount of time it would have taken Justice to release this one document?”
The DOJ declined to comment when asked about the lawsuit.
The foundation alleges that DOJ is withholding Bondi’s memo saying it was “legally permissible” for the Trump administration to accept the jet.
Her approval came despite her previous work lobbying for the Qatari government and various complaints that accepting the jet could violate the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. That law prevents presidents from accepting gifts from foreign governments without Congress’ approval.
“This is precisely the kind of corrupt arrangement that public records laws are designed to expose,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, a nonprofit focused on government accountability that is partnering with the foundation on the lawsuit.
“The DOJ cannot sit on its hands and expect the American people to wait years for the truth while serious questions about corruption, self-dealing, and foreign influence go unanswered,” his statement continued.
The FOIA process is notoriously slow, and multiple administrations, including Trump’s, have been criticized for delays and backlogs that leave some requests open for years.
Other parts of the Trump administration also have been hit with lawsuits this year for their roles in blocking the release of information.
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Footage is deleted’
The federal case is playing out as city officials in San Antonio continue to say they don’t have the footage of a tug jackknifing as it pulled the $400 million jet shortly after it arrived at San Antonio International Airport in April.
Trump’s “flying palace” was in San Antonio from April through June before it was flown to Fort Worth’s Alliance Airport.
Shortly after the 747 arrived to San Antonio, a tug pulling the jet jackknifed, leaving the jet’s tail protruding into a runway safety zone for several minutes. Crews had to notify air traffic control of the incident, which was deemed serious enough for airport officials to document in an official report although it didn’t cause any injuries or damage.
The mishap was caught on video. However, that footage, which was identified in the incident report by camera and time stamp data, wasn’t released with it.
In response to a subsequent records request, the city said the video was “not available” because the airport surveillance system only keeps footage for 30 days. After that, “the footage is deleted due to storage limitations,” the city’s open records office said.
However, Global Jet, the airplane’s operator at the time as well as VT San Antonio Aerospace, the tug operator, the Air Force and maybe Boeing would want to see the video to determine what kind of inspections would be required to ensure the craft’s flightworthiness, according to Jon Cutshall, an aircraft structures engineer with the Southwest Research Institute.
Airport officials likely shared the footage with those entities, but the city hasn’t yet responded to requests for emails referencing the video. Nor has it provided statistics about similar incidents that have occurred at the San Antonio airport.
“I know, structurally, that this is such a minor thing. The 747 is a rock solid airplane,” Cutshall said. “The things that go into loading the landing gear are so much more severe without a tug that it (the mishap) did more damage to the tug than it did to the airplane.”
Cutshall said the fact that the plane has flown again indicates any necessary inspections would have been completed.
“Anything required would have been accomplished before it got its tag to fly again,” he said.
Previously released records show that on April 2, Global Jet, the jet’s operator at the time, notified airport director Jesus Saenz and his deputy via email of its plans to fly the jet into San Antonio. Multiple airport leaders were part of those emails coordinating emergency services and logistics for the aircraft.
The Air Force wouldn’t say if it had seen the video or been briefed on the towing incident that occurred before the Pentagon took possession of the jet. A service spokesperson told the San Antonio Express-News that it “intends to conduct a full evaluation of the aircraft.”
The jet, P4-HBJ, remains at the Fort Worth airport.
