The AP reports: White House: Trump to fly old Air Force One for about a month as Qatari-gifted jet gets ‘upgrades’.
Trump’s use of the new red, white and navy blue aircraft has faced much scrutiny not only because it was gifted by a foreign government, but also because it appears to not be equipped with some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems as the older jets.
But it came under deeper scrutiny this month when he left the NATO summit in Turkey on the older, baby blue Air Force One and made a previously unscheduled stop at a base in the United Kingdom. Trump then swapped back onto the new Qatari-gifted plane at Royal Air Force Mildenhall.
“The new Air Force One is perfectly safe for the President’s travels, but will receive additional upgrades and enhancements in the fall which will take approximately one month to complete,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “During that time, the President will fly on the old Air Force One.”
This is after, it should be noted, the taxpayers have already had to spend ~$400 million on retrofitting the plane initially. And keeping in mind that there was already a functional set of planes that had the needed security capabilities fully available.
We can just set aside the propriety question of taking a gift of this magnitude from a foreign government with whom the president has business interests or the fact that the plane is slated to go into his presidential library when he leaves office.
I suppose, while we are at it, we should also ignore that the president is siccing the Justice Department on reporters for having the audacity of reporting on why Trump took the old Air Force One back to the US from the NATO summit in Turkey, instead of the new one (hint: it has something to do with the lack of adequate security on the newer plane).
NPR reports: ‘New York Times’ alleges White House abuses legal system to intimidate reporters.
The New York Times will argue in a federal court hearing Thursday that the White House is abusing the justice system to fish for its reporters’ sources in a story that outraged President Trump.
More broadly, the newspaper contends, the Trump administration is seeking to deter those same reporters from intense coverage of the president.
[…]
In recent years, including under Trump, it has been customary for the FBI to deliver subpoenas for reporters’ testimony and materials directly to news organizations so that their lawyers could fight them in court. Compelling evidence and testimony from reporters is supposed to be a last resort, not a first move, even under Trump’s then Attorney General Pam Bondi last year.
Agents instead went to several reporters’ homes on the night of Friday, July 10 — just two days after the first story was published — with subpoenas compelling their testimony before a grand jury. And the FBI pursued records involving all five reporters and several reporters’ family members, the paper said.
“When something like this happens, it’s very frightening,” says Katherine Marsh, the wife of Times reporter Julian E. Barnes. “You almost feel like you’re being treated as an enemy of the state and we’re just reporters and reporters’ families.”
The paper pointed to its own subsequent reporting that FBI Director Kash Patel, while at the White House, personally oversaw the issuing of the subpoenas as proof that they were motivated by considerations of the administration’s wishes. His orchestration of the day’s events would represent an extraordinary involvement of a presidentially appointed law enforcement official just yards from the Oval Office.
All of that is because the Trump administration was embarrassed over the new plane being revealed to have not been adequately outfitted.
The bottom line is this: Trump did not need a new plane. He certainly did not need to get one from a foreign government. He did not need to waste federal dollars on it. He was further foolish to use it without the appropriate air defense systems in place. He also should not be sending FBI agents to serve warrants at reporters’ homes because he doesn’t like the truth of his folly being reported.
Yet again, he is treating the Treasury and the Department of Justice, not to mention the new plane, like they are his personal property. And he is, yet again, demonstrating that he is not a serious person who does not understand the serious job that he holds.
