Editorial Note
This story is based on financial disclosures released by the White House, the administration’s annual report on White House salaries, federal ethics rules, and reporting from Reuters, The Washington Post, and other national news organizations. The payments themselves aren’t disputed. The legal question is whether they were simply personal gifts, as the White House says, or crossed the line into compensation connected to government service.
Most office Christmas gifts don’t require a federal ethics lawyer.
Donald Trump gave four people working for him in the White House a combined $155,000 in cash gifts. Natalie Harp, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris received $45,000 apiece. Walt Nauta received $20,000. Reuters (Reuters)
Harp, Martin and Harris each earn $150,000 a year from the federal government, making each $45,000 payment equal to about 30 percent of her annual salary. The women described the payments on their disclosure forms as “Cash Gift for Holidays.” We have officially left the land of fruit baskets and Amazon gift cards. The Washington Post (The Washington Post)
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These Aren’t Random White House Employees
These four employees operate close to the President. Harp serves as a special assistant and executive assistant, Harris works in Oval Office operations, Martin is a communications adviser, and Nauta directs Oval Office operations. Harp also helps manage material reaching Trump’s Truth Social account, while Martin frequently records him for social media. Reuters (Reuters)
These aren’t employees Trump occasionally passes while looking for the restroom. They work inside his political and governmental nerve center. Then their boss, who also happens to be President of the United States, personally handed three of them checks worth nearly a third of their government salaries.
The White House Says It Was Just Christmas
White House spokesman Davis Ingle says there’s nothing improper here. He said Trump has long given holiday gifts to employees and others around him, including during his years in private business. The White House position is that these payments were personal gifts and had nothing to do with the recipients’ government work. Reuters (Reuters)
That distinction matters because 18 U.S.C. § 209(a) prohibits a federal executive-branch employee from receiving salary, or a contribution or supplement to salary, from a source other than the United States as compensation for government service. Federal ethics regulations expressly incorporate the same prohibition at 5 C.F.R. § 2635.205(d)(2). So the existence of a large payment alone doesn’t establish a violation. 18 U.S.C. § 209 5 C.F.R. § 2635.205 (Legal Information Institute)
The courts have already explained why that phrase matters. In United States v. Raborn, 575 F.2d 688 (9th Cir. 1978), the Ninth Circuit said Section 209 requires proof that the employee received the money as compensation for services as a federal employee. In other words, calling something a gift doesn’t settle the question, but neither does the size of the check automatically make it salary. United States v. Raborn (Justia Law)
The Supreme Court went further in describing why the statute exists. In Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 159, 165 (1990), the Court described Section 209 as a prophylactic rule aimed at the source of government employees’ compensation and said conflict-of-interest laws can properly guard against even the appearance of wrongdoing. The Court also discussed the danger created when an outside paymaster acquires an economic hold over a public employee. Crandon v. United States (Justia Law)
That doesn’t answer whether Trump’s payments violated Section 209.
It does explain why “personal gift” is doing so much work.
Two Ethics Experts, Two Different Levels of Alarm
Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, has argued that the payments appear to run afoul of the prohibition on supplementing federal salaries. His concern is that money from Trump could make it financially easier for an aide to remain in government service. That would put the payment much closer to the purpose Section 209 was written to address. The Washington Post (The Washington Post)
Don Fox, a former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, takes a more cautious view. He said the disclosed facts don’t establish that the money was a salary supplement and pointed to the need for some connection between the payment and the employee’s government service. That disagreement is exactly why stating flatly that Trump “broke the law” would be getting ahead of the evidence. The Washington Post (The Washington Post)
The ethics question doesn’t require nearly as much squinting.
Try Saying No to the Guy Who Just Gave You $45,000
Imagine your boss personally gives you $45,000. Later, he wants something done, and you happen to be the person in the room who ought to tell him it’s a terrible idea. Maybe you’re perfectly capable of ignoring that check.
But does it cross your mind?
Of course it does.
That’s the problem government ethics rules are trying to prevent. Public employees are supposed to perform their jobs without wondering whether the person demanding something from them also happens to be responsible for a five-figure deposit in their checking account. You don’t need a brown envelope passed under a restaurant table before a financial relationship becomes relevant.
Fox himself acknowledged that a payment of this size could leave an employee feeling uncomfortable or beholden to the person who gave it. Ethics experts interviewed by The Washington Post said they weren’t aware of another publicly known example of a president giving subordinate White House employees personal cash gifts on this scale. The Washington Post (The Washington Post)
“Legal” Is a Pretty Low Bar for the White House
Maybe the White House argument ultimately survives legal scrutiny. If these payments truly had nothing to do with government service, Section 209’s compensation requirement matters. Courts don’t get to erase statutory elements because something looks lousy.
But we’re allowed to expect more from a president than conduct carefully engineered to survive a criminal statute.
The federal government already pays these employees to work for the United States. The President shouldn’t need to personally improve the compensation package with checks worth tens of thousands of dollars. And nobody should have to wonder whether the person whispering advice in the Oval Office is also remembering who paid for Christmas.
From Off Script: The Bullshit Detector
THE CLAIM:
Trump was carried away from danger by two firefighters while helping near Ground Zero after 9/11.
Bullshit.
Trump said this week that two firefighters grabbed him under the arms, lifted him and carried him away because nearby One Liberty Plaza appeared in danger of collapsing. There are accounts confirming fears that the building might collapse and that people were evacuated, but PolitiFact found no evidence placing Trump there during that evacuation or corroborating the firefighter story. The earliest verified photos and video placing Trump near Ground Zero are from September 13, two days after the attacks. PolitiFact (PolitiFact)
THE CLAIM:
Trump declared the Moon a territory of the United States because America got there first.
Bullshit.
The supposed Truth Social post originated with satire and was later circulated as though it were genuine. Searches of Trump’s real account and archived posts found no such declaration or executive order, and the fake account shown in the image even misspelled Trump’s name as “Turmp.” Apparently annexing the Moon wasn’t enough. Somebody also had to conquer spelling. Lead Stories (Lead Stories)
THE CLAIM:
A viral video shows an Iranian missile striking a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Bullshit.
The video is real, but the description attached to it isn’t. Fact-checkers traced the footage to a July 2026 U.S. military exercise in which the decommissioned amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu was struck by Harpoon missiles during RIMPAC. It does not show Iran hitting a current U.S. aircraft carrier, which is a pretty important detail when somebody is trying to convince you a war just escalated. Misbar (Misbar)
THE CLAIM:
Growing one California almond uses as much water as 38,000 ChatGPT queries.
Bullshit.
Sam Altman made the comparison while discussing AI’s environmental footprint, but PolitiFact rated it Mostly False. The number combines a high estimate for almond water use with a comparatively low and unverified estimate for ChatGPT, while actual AI water consumption can vary dramatically depending on the model, data center and task. Available estimates put the rough comparison closer to 1,000 to 10,000 conversational prompts per almond, which is still a lot of questions but considerably fewer than 38,000. PolitiFact (PolitiFact)
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One Question Before You Go
Forget the legal argument for a moment.
Would you feel completely independent from a boss who had personally handed you $45,000 in cash?
I wouldn’t.
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