Thursday, April 21, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Former President Donald Trump destroyed the gift log indicating the foreign governments that gave him gifts in the last year of his presidency. Likewise, the 2020 gift log for former Vice President Mike Pence and White House staffers disappeared.
Article I, Section 9, of the U.S. Constitution prohibits employees of the federal government from accepting gifts from foreign heads of state without consent of Congress. The rationale is to avoid improper influence and the recognition that any gifts to the U.S. should be for the benefit of all citizens.
This destruction of evidence of wrongdoing is not new for Trump, who also removed records from the White House and flushed them down toilets at his Mar-a-lago and erased more than seven minutes of his telephone-taped conversations on the day of the Capitol insurrection.
During the 2016 presidential campaign and the first three years of his presidency, we learned that Trump was a con man and grifter, but we didn’t know the depth of his thievery.
So why do most Republicans in the Senate and House support Trump? I wonder if Trump regifted his ill-gotten gains.
