Trump failed to declare 100 foreign gifts worth $250k while President

A new report into Donald Trump’s time as president has alleged a “brazen disregard for the rule of law” after a year long investigation.

The White House failed to report more than 100 foreign gifts with a total value of over $250,000 while Donald Trump was in power, a new report has revealed.

Officials can’t even locate two gifts received by Trump, who served as US President between 2017 and 2021, and his family from foreign nations.

This includes a life size painting of Trump commissioned by the president of El Salvador and delivered just before the 2020 election, as well as thousands of dollars worth of golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan.

A report from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee revealed a stack of gifts from two nations that were never reported such as 16 gifts from Saudi Arabia worth more than $45,000, including a dagger valued at up to $24,000.

There were also 17 presents from India with the likes of expensive cufflinks, a vase and a $4600 model of the Taj Mahal and at least five gifts from China.

Former President Donald Trump speaks to guests gathered for an event at the Adler Theatre on March 13, 2023 in Davenport, Iowa. Picture: Scott Olson / Getty Images via AFP

Under US law, gifts that are valued above $480 which are given to the president, vice-president and their families by foreign officials must be reported to the state department.

It comes as Trump flagged a third White House run for 2024 late last year and marked his return on Friday to his Facebook and YouTube accounts, more than two years after he was banned over the US Capitol insurrection.

A year long investigation produced the 15-page report from the committee, which also found that the number of gifts reported by Trump and his family are lower than the amount disclosed by previous presidents.

Trump did not disclose any gifts in his final year of the presidency during 2020, the report noted.

Former president Donald Trump wrote his first posts on his reinstated Facebook and YouTube accounts more than two years after he was banned over the US Capitol insurrection. Picture: Chris Delmas / AFP

Democrat congressman Jamie Raskin said the findings indicate “a brazen disregard for the rule of law and its systematic mishandling of large gifts”.

“We’ve been able to piece all of this together through independent sources, but there could be a lot more given that none of these gifts have been reported and we’ve only found out about them through different kinds of investigative work and accidents,” he told the Washington Post.

He added there were many “lavish personalised gifts that vastly exceed the statutory limit in value but were never reported – some that are still missing today”.

Trump’s spokesman denied the claims. Picture: Scott Olson/Getty Images/AFP

Raskin said the committee’s work hadn’t stopped either.

He added it “remain committed to following the facts to determine the extent to which former President Trump broke the law or violated the constitution when he failed to report gifts and took possession of valuable items without paying the fair market price for them.”

But a Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said “many items were received either before or after the administration”.