Financial disclosures show president provided large holiday cash payments to close staffers; White House defends them as personal and legal.
President Donald Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts each to three close White House aides last year, including his executive assistant Natalie Harp, according to financial disclosure forms released by the administration.
The recipients of the $45,000 “cash gift for the holidays” were Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and Chamberlain Harris, the deputy director of Oval Office operations. A fourth aide, Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations and a longtime Trump associate, received a $20,000 cash gift, the documents show.
The three women each earn annual government salaries of $150,000. The gifts amount to nearly one-third of their official pay. No other White House staffers declared similar gifts from the president in the disclosures.
White House Defends Cash Gifts to Staffers:
The White House has described the payments as personal holiday gifts unrelated to the staffers’ official duties. In a statement, a White House official said Trump “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.”
“The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards,” the official added.
Federal employees are generally prohibited from receiving outside compensation for their government work. Some ethics experts have raised questions about whether the large cash amounts could be viewed as a form of salary supplementation, which is restricted for political appointees. The White House maintains the gifts fall outside those rules because they are personal in nature.
Trump Aides Receive Over $155,000 in Gifts:
Harp is one of Trump’s most constant and trusted aides, often described as a gatekeeper who frequently accompanies him and has been nicknamed the “human printer” for providing him with printed materials. Martin and Harris also work in close proximity to the president in the West Wing. Nauta has a long personal history with Trump dating back to his first term and was previously charged (later dropped) in connection with the classified documents case.
The disclosures were first reported by The Washington Post and subsequently confirmed by multiple outlets. The total value of the four gifts exceeds $155,000. The revelations come amid ongoing scrutiny of Trump’s inner circle and the boundaries between personal and official relationships in the White House.