President Donald Trump accused of violating the same federal criminal statute twice in two days
President Donald Trump has been accused of violating federal law twice within a 24-hour period, first over cash gifts to White House aides and then over a pledge to send $5,000 payments to Americans if Republicans win the midterm elections.
The two allegations involve different sections of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, according to Newsweek.
The aide cash gifts and Section 209
The Washington Post reported that Trump gave holiday cash gifts of $45,000 each to three White House aides: executive assistant Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris. Oval Office operations director Walt Nauta received a separate $20,000 gift, according to the disclosures, which were later confirmed by NBC News, CNN and Newsweek.
The payments were disclosed in the aides’ annual financial disclosure forms published by the White House.
Harp, Martin and Harris each earn $150,000 annually, while Nauta earns $175,000, according to the White House salary disclosure report to Congress cited by NBC News. The $45,000 gifts therefore amounted to about 30 percent of the three aides’ annual salaries, a detail highlighted by Newsweek and IBTimes UK.
Ethics experts said the payments could violate 18 U.S.C. § 209, titled “Salary of Government officials and employees payable only by United States.” The law generally bars executive branch employees from receiving compensation or salary supplements from sources other than the federal government.
Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, told Newsweek that the size of the payments resembled the type of conduct the statute was designed to prevent.
“If your employer gives you $50,000 at the end of the year, that’s not a gift, that is salary,” Painter said, according to Newsweek. He also warned that Trump “could get himself impeached for it.”
Not every legal expert agreed. Moneywise reported that a former federal ethics director offered a more cautious assessment, saying whether the payments were “genuine gifts” or disguised compensation remains a contested legal question.
CNN reported that scrutiny of Harp had intensified before the disclosure after Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff referenced her in a speech criticizing Trump, including her travel with the president aboard an aircraft made available by the Emir of Qatar.
The $5,000 dividend pledge and Section 597
During the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, Trump told the crowd that Americans would receive $5,000 if Republicans retained control of Congress.
“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our tremendous economic success, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States for $5,000,” Trump said, according to PBS NewsHour and Newsweek.
He added, according to PBS NewsHour’s account, “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” calling it “the Trump dividend.”
Trump compared the payment to a corporate shareholder distribution and pointed to what he described as the nation’s economic strength. He also referenced a $1,776 payment given to members of the military the previous year. According to The New American, Trump said recipients would be expected to spend the money domestically rather than abroad.
The pledge immediately drew scrutiny from legal experts who said it could implicate 18 U.S.C. § 597, which makes it a crime to offer an expenditure in exchange for voting or withholding a vote for a candidate.
Painter reiterated his concerns on X, writing, “No, Mr. President you can’t offer voters $5000 if the Republicans win the House and Senate,” and citing the statute directly, according to Newsweek.
Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor, told Newsweek that the statute’s language “would seem to fit what Trump is offering.” She said the proposal would likely fall outside the presidential immunity recognized by the Supreme Court in 2024 because that immunity is “limited at the outer perimeter of a president’s official duties.”
She added that “this promise came from Trump as a political party member, not as president.”
Michael McAuliffe, a former federal prosecutor and former elected state attorney, told Newsweek the proposal is “suspect in many ways.”
Others rejected that legal interpretation. New Mexico-based attorney John Day told the Associated Press, “This is a campaign promise. It’s not a payment to individuals to try to get them to vote in a particular way.”
Some commentators argued the proposal could be legal because the payment would apply to every American regardless of how they voted or whether they voted at all.
The proposal also faces questions about its feasibility. Truthout reported that congressional approval would be unlikely given the difficulty lawmakers previously faced in approving smaller COVID-era relief checks. The payments could cost more than $1 trillion, while some economists warned they could increase inflationary pressure on consumer goods.
White House response
A White House official defended the cash gifts to aides in a response to Newsweek, saying they were unrelated to the recipients’ government duties.
“The President 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 official said. “The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”
The official did not comment on the $5,000 dividend pledge when asked by Newsweek.
Political reaction
Democrats criticized the $5,000 proposal as an empty campaign promise intended to influence voters.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X, “After making you sicker and poorer with his war, Donald Trump now wants to buy your vote with $5,000 in taxpayer-funded blood money,” calling Trump “the most corrupt man ever to occupy the Oval Office.”
On the same platform, a user identified by The New American as an attorney called the offer “a bribe,” adding, “It’s also a violation of Federal Law.”