President Donald Trump gave his executive assistant Natalie Harp and two other aides $45,000 cash gifts for the holidays, according to their financial disclosures, effectively bumping up their salaries to the top of the White House pay scale.
Harp, along with aides Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris, each make $150,000 and each recorded the $45,000 gifts in their financial disclosures released by the White House. Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, makes $175,000 and reported a $20,000 gift. They all described their payments as a “cash gift for the holidays.”
When added to their government salaries, the payments mean the four aides made roughly the same amount in a year as chief of staff Susie Wiles, former press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and communications director Stephen Cheung, who all make $195,200 according to the White House annual report to Congress. The highest-paid staff in the White House made $197,200 per year.
“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,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.
“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,” Ingle said.
Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said the payments may violate a criminal federal law that prohibits supplementation of government salaries.
Painter said the law is designed to make sure that people don’t, for example, leave Wall Street for a lower-paying job with the Treasury Department but get extra money from their former employers. It also helps prevents bribes, he said.
“He’s sort of buying loyalty from his White House staff,” Painter said. He said the people in the White House answer to the president but should be loyal to the public good. He said characterizing the payments as a gift makes no difference.
“You don’t give Christmas bonuses to government employees,” Painter said. “We do it at law firms and at banks, but that’s why you’re employed at law firms and banks.”
Harp has come under scrutiny for her unusual level of loyalty to the president, and was mentioned in a viral social media video. Her job is to stay by Trump’s side virtually all hours of the working day, a position often referred to in political circles as the president’s “body person.” She shares news stories with Trump and writes many of his social media posts.
Martin, Harris, and Nauta also regularly travel with Trump alongside other top aides. In comments Aug. 21, Trump named Martin, a communications advisor to the president, as a potential replacement for Leavitt as White House Press Secretary.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump gave $45,000 gifts to Natalie Harp, others, from his own pocket
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