President Donald Trump\u2019s holiday gifts to a select group of White House aides have come under scrutiny after financial disclosures revealed that four staff members reported receiving cash gifts totaling $157,000. Three aides\u2014Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and executive assistant Chamberlain Harris\u2014each received $45,000, while Walt Nauta received $22,000. The unusually large amounts have drawn attention because only four of the more than 90 listed staff members reported receiving gifts from the president. The White House says the payments were personal holiday gifts unrelated to government duties and therefore permissible under applicable ethics rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The disclosure has also renewed attention on Harp, one of Trump\u2019s closest aides, whose role has attracted public interest for years. Harp became known after sharing her experience with cancer and crediting Trump\u2019s \u201cRight to Try\u201d policy, later joining his staff and becoming closely involved in his daily communications. Ethics experts have disagreed over whether the cash payments could be considered gifts or additional compensation, with some saying the size and circumstances raise legitimate questions. At the same time, Melania Trump\u2019s senior adviser Marc Beckman has rejected what he described as media gossip surrounding Harp and the First Family. He argued that coverage should focus on the administration\u2019s work rather than speculation about private relationships, leaving the unusual payments\u2014and the questions surrounding them\u2014as the issue still drawing attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump\u2019s holiday gifts to a select group of White House aides have come under scrutiny after financial disclosures revealed that four staff members reported receiving… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":56077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":34,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56078,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56076\/revisions\/56078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}