WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week, and U.S. officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft.

The Qatari government said a final decision hadn’t been made. Still, Trump defended the idea — what would amount to a president accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government — as a fiscally smart move for the country. Sold new, a commercial Boeing 747-8 costs in the range of $400 million.

“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump posted on his social media site on Sunday night. “Anybody can do that!”

ABC News reported that Trump will use the aircraft as his presidential plane until shortly before he leaves office in January 2029, when ownership will be transferred to the foundation overseeing his yet-to-be-built presidential library. The gift was expected to be announced when Trump visits Qatar this week, according to ABC’s report, as part of a trip that also includes stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the first extended foreign travel of his second term.

Before Trump’s post trumpeting the idea, Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché, said in a statement that the “possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense.”

“But the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made,” the statement added.

A White House official echoed that the plane would not be presented or accepted this week. The Justice Department and the Defense Department did not comment.

Ethics concerns

Meanwhile, administration officials, anticipating ethics concerns, have prepared an analysis arguing that accepting the plane would be legal, according to ABC. The Constitution’s Emoluments Clause bars anyone holding government office from accepting any present, emolument, office or title from any “King, Prince, or foreign State,” without congressional consent.

One senior U.S. government official said that the Defense Department had determined it could accept the plane. Two people familiar with the language of an analysis conducted by the office of the White House counsel, David Warrington, and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, said they had determined it would fall within the law for Trump’s library to receive the plane. The two people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have yet to be publicly announced.

The model that the government is using for addressing the ethical issues raised by the donation, one of the officials said, is the one followed by President Ronald Reagan’s presidential library when it received the Air Force One he had flown on after it was retired. But at the time, Reagan did not use the plane. It was set up in the museum portion of his library.

Another person with knowledge of the effort to acquire the plane said that the Qataris had initially discussed donating it immediately to the Trump library, and Trump would then use it while in office. But government lawyers said that would violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution, the person said.

In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump’s administration is committed to full transparency.”

One expert on government ethics, Kathleen Clark of the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, accused Trump of being “committed to exploiting the federal government’s power, not on behalf of policy goals, but for amassing personal wealth.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer poked fun at Trump’s “America first” political slogan.

“Nothing says ‘America First’ like Air Force One, brought to you by Qatar,” the New York Democrat said in a statement. “It’s not just bribery, it’s premium foreign influence with extra legroom.”

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called such a gift “unprecedented.”

“The totality of gifts given to a president over their term doesn’t get close to this level,” Libowitz said, adding, “You have to ask, if he makes foreign policy — especially in regards to the Middle East — how much is he being influenced by his gifts and his business deals.”

Air Force One is a modified Boeing 747. Two exist, and the president flies on both, which are more than 30 years old. Boeing Inc. has the contract to produce updated versions, but delivery has been delayed while the company has lost billions of dollars on the project.

Trump intends to convert the Qatari aircraft into a plane he can fly on as president, with the Air Force planning to add secure communications and other classified elements to it.

Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, which is now largely run by his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, has vast and growing interests in the Middle East. That includes a new deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, partnering with Qatari Diar, a real estate company backed by that country’s sovereign wealth fund.

“It’s hard to see it as a coincidence when Trump’s company just announced a new golf resort in Qatar, reportedly partnered with a company owned by the country’s government, and will soon be meeting with senior Qatari officials in a Middle East trip that also features meetings with heads of state of two other countries he has property developments in,” Libowitz, of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, said in a statement.

Leavitt, the press secretary, when asked Friday if the president might meet with people who have ties to his family’s business, said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Trump “is doing anything for his own benefit.”

This report contains information from the New York Times.