President Donald Trump gave three White House aides and a senior aide holiday gifts amounting to $110,000. Per AP, The payments were listed as cash gifts and went to employees who work directly for the president.
Natalie Harp, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris each reported receiving $45,000 from Trump. Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, reported receiving $20,000.
The money is particularly striking because Harp, Martin and Harris each earn $150,000 annually as government employees. This means the gifts amounted to roughly 30% of their yearly salaries. Nauta earns $175,000, according to the White House’s salary disclosures.
The White House says the gifts were personal, but ethics experts aren’t so sure
A White House official defended the payments, saying Trump has a longstanding practice of giving holiday gifts to people in his orbit. The official also said the gifts were unrelated to the recipients’ government duties and were therefore permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.
But former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, as reported by The Washington Post, said that the payments appear to run into a federal law. It prohibits the supplementation of federal employees’ salaries from outside sources. He argued that the issue is different from an ordinary holiday gift because these recipients are government employees.
Former acting Office of Government Ethics director Don Fox offered a more cautious assessment. He says the available facts do not make it clear that the payments violate the salary-supplementation prohibition. He pointed to circumstances that could matter when determining the purpose behind a payment.
Harp’s inclusion is likely to attract particular attention because she is one of Trump’s closest aides. She is known for carrying a portable printer so she can provide him with hard copies of favorable news coverage and social media posts.
The financial disclosures provide the clearest public record of the payments, but they do not establish that the gifts were made in exchange for official actions or that a law was violated. For now, the central dispute is over how federal ethics rules apply to a president giving large personal cash gifts to people who work for him in government.
Published: Sep 9, 2026 01:30 pm