Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump gave unusually large cash holiday gifts to several White House aides, including $45,000 each to executive assistant Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy Oval Office operations director Chamberlain Harris, according to newly released financial disclosures.
The three aides each earn $150,000 annually, making Trump’s payments equal to roughly 30% of their government salaries. Director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta, who earns $175,000, received a separate $20,000 gift.
The aides listed the payments as “Cash Gift for Holidays” on federal disclosure forms. A White House official told the Associated Press that Trump has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts and said the payments were personal, unrelated to government duties and permissible under applicable ethics rules.
The size of the gifts, however, has prompted questions from government ethics specialists. Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told The Washington Post that the payments could implicate federal rules restricting outside supplementation of government employees’ salaries. The Post reported that ethics experts it contacted were unaware of another president giving subordinate White House employees cash gifts on this scale.
No government agency has publicly determined that the payments violated federal law or ethics regulations.
The disclosures nonetheless provide a rare look at sizable personal payments flowing directly from a sitting president to employees working closely with him inside the White House.
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