America on Wednesday formally accepted a luxurious jet from Qatar to make use of as Air Pressure One, the Protection Division confirmed to NewsNation on Wednesday.
“The Secretary of Defense [Pete Hegseth] has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell stated in a press release to Tanya Noury, senior White Home producer at The Hill’s sister community.
“The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States,” he added, referring additional inquiries to the Air Pressure.
The Qatari present was additionally raised at President Trump’s assembly with South Africa’s president on the White Home on Wednesday. Trump shot down the query and repeatedly insulted the reporter who requested about criticism across the jet.
Trump final week stated he would settle for the $400 million luxurious Boeing 747-8, beforehand utilized by the Qatari royal household, as a stand-in for the getting older Air Pressure One fleet.
The airplane – which is among the largest international presents ever accepted by a U.S. president – has been criticized by U.S. lawmakers on each side of the aisle, who say it raises each moral and safety questions.
Quite a few Republicans have argued that the purportedly free jet comes with strings, given it might want to undergo the prolonged and costly means of being remodeled into Air Pressure One.
Others have raised security considerations concerning the jet, together with a bunch of senior Democratic senators led by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who need the Pentagon’s watchdog to look into the Protection Division’s acceptance of the gifted airplane and the Protection Division’s function within the switch.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), has stated utilizing the airplane as Air Pressure One “would pose immense counterintelligence risks by granting a foreign nation potential access to sensitive systems and communications.”
However Trump has defended his resolution to simply accept the jet, arguing it’s authorized and dismissing the bipartisan criticism as a “radical left story.”
“I just want to say, it was a radical left story,” Trump advised Fox Information’s Bret Baier in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, throughout a cease on his diplomatic journey to the Center East final week. “The people here, to show you how crazy it is, they would like me to pay a billion dollars.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Tuesday described the present as one “done in full transparency and very legally.”
Boeing has had a contract with the U.S. authorities since Trump’s first time period in 2018 to switch its pair of getting older Air Pressure Ones, two army variations of the Boeing 747. The supply of the plane has been delayed till at the very least 2027, a timeline Trump has latched onto in arguing the Qatari jet might function an interim airplane.
However the gifted plane from Qatar would face a retrofit that would take years to finish and price a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars}, with new energy programs, electrical wiring and different know-how for safe communications and self-defense wanted.
This story was up to date at 1:49 p.m.
