Former Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was on the receiving end of an embarrassing fact check when she attempted to attack President Donald Trump over his trip to Qatar on Wednesday.
In an X post, Clinton suggested that Trump was being blackmailed by Qatar after the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation offered a luxury plane valued at $400 million as a gift to the United States. The Department of Defense is expected to retrofit the Boeing 747-8 luxury jet to be used as Air Force One.
Democrats have attempted to claim the plane was offered to President Trump personally, which is not the case. “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. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
Nevertheless, Democrats have attempted to turn the story into a scandal, albeit to little effect. Clinton joined in on the outrage cycle by suggesting Trump was being blackmailed, stating, “No one gives someone a $400 million dollar jet for free without expecting anything in return. Be serious.”
The post soon went viral for the wrong reasons, however, as internet sleuths pointed out that the Clinton Foundation once accepted a $1 million from Qatar while Hillary was serving as U.S. Secretary of State. The gift was accepted even though Clinton vowed to let the department review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments, Reuters reported at the time.
Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to mark the 65th birthday of former President Bill Clinton, Hillary’s husband, and sought to meet the former U.S. president in person the following year to present him the check, according to an email from a foundation official to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta.
The email was among the thousands from Podesta’s account that were leaked by WikiLeaks down the stretch of the 2016 presidential election.
As part of his first official overseas trip since winning re-election back in November, Trump visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to secure multi-billion-dollar investments in U.S. companies. Saudi Arabia pledged to increase its U.S. investments by $600 billion, while Qatar doubled that amount by announcing a $1.2 trillion investment during Trump’s visit on Wednesday.
Within the agreement are stipulations that Qatar Airways, the Middle East’s premier airline travel service, will purchase $96 billion worth of 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X airplanes with GE Aerospace engines. A statement of intent signals that another $38 billion in U.S.-made defense goods may be purchased to fortify Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base and fill other maritime security needs.
“This historic agreement will support 154,000 U.S. jobs annually, totaling over 1 million jobs in the United States during the course of production and delivery of this deal,” a White House overview of the deal states.
