Hello and welcome to The Exert. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, May 22nd, 2025,

and this is a special episode of the excerpt.

In 2018, the U.S. Air Force awarded a $3.9 billion contract to Boeing for two new Air Force One planes.

For a variety of reasons, including delays tied to the need for workers with proper security clearances.

Boeing may or may not be able to complete the order before the end of President Donald Trump's second term.

Meanwhile, the Qatari Prime Minister has offered

to gift the president a luxury 747 jet valued at $400 million, and the Department of Defense

has just accepted it. There are questions about whether the Qatari plane can even be brought up

to Air Force One's safety and security standards before Trump leaves office.

But the bigger question may be whether it's lawful for the president to accept it.

Here to share his insights on that, I'm now joined by Richard Perfault, Professor of Legislation at Columbia Law School.

Thanks for joining me, Richard.

My pleasure. Happy to be here.

There are two emoluments clauses, the foreign emoluments clause and the domestic amoluments clause. Let's start with the

foreign clause. What is its purpose and who does it apply to? The foreign emoluments clause is

basically designed to prevent federal officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments from

foreign heads of state. Many people think it relates to a specific incident during the

period of time of the revolution, of the time of the writing of the Constitution, when

Benjamin Franklin, who was then the ambassador of France, received an ornate, jeweled box as

a gift from the King of France.

And people in America were suspicious that somehow this would have made him too pro-French.

And so that at least is the story behind the Emoluments Clause.

...