A History of Bribes and Trump’s Palace in the Sky

We go back to the Egyptians, Popes, and even some American scandals to see bribery history and then explore whether the Qatari "gift" of a jet is a bribe.  

Transcript

A History of Bribes and Trump’s Palace in the Sky 

May 2025

“In vain may heroes fight and patriots rave if secret gold sap on from knave to knave.”

Alexander Pope

“Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.” Exodus 23:8

“So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you’ll wait for me

Hold me like you’ll never let me go

’Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane

Don’t know when I’ll be back again.”

John Denver 

Historical Question for this podcast: How long has bribery been around? 

Timothy Martin, in his “The Development of International Bribery Law,” states, “There are records of bribes and bribery laws from ancient times.  Archaeologists have recently found an Assyrian archive which is 3400 years old that listed the names of “employees accepting bribes.”  An Egyptian pharaoh, Horemheb (hor rem heb) (1342-1314 BC and the 18th Dynasty), issued the first recorded law of a secular penalty for bribetaking. The Edict of Horemheb proclaimed that any judge who took a reward from one litigant and failed to hear the adversary was guilty of a “crime against justice” and subject to capital punishment.  His threat apparently did not stop the practice of bribing the judiciary from spreading beyond Egypt.”

Let’s define the term bribe as “Persuading (someone) to act in one’s favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement.” Bribery itself is one aspect of another term, corruption: “dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.” 

In many ways, this concept predates even the Egyptians or Assyrians.  Providing a sacrifice to the gods in whatever form was, in a fashion, an effort to effect divine influence.  When the Romans would sacrifice a bull, or the Carthaginians, a noble child, it was not just to appease the gods but to bring them around to a certain point of view.  Without a clear benefit, why go to all the trouble? Where there is power, there will be those who try to affect how that power is wielded.  True of gods and true of executives within Republics.  

In John T. Noonan’s book Bribes: The Intellectual History of a Moral Idea, the author traces the beginning of the bribe system by noting that in many places, what we would call a bribe was simply the offering of a gift, a token of friendship.  Only later, with the Hebrew concept of God as arbiter and the Roman one as prejudicing a judge, did this concept evolve into the negative, “Without the idea that bribes to judges are something to be avoided, the Roman system of law would have been a marketplace. For the first time, at least in Western tradition, a class was constituted that was professionally opposed to giving offerings to judges. When the Christians appeared in the Roman Empire, they inherited the Hebrew idea and the Roman professional practice. They added to what they had received. First, they accepted the idea that the briber and the bribee were doing something wrong.

“Greek historian Herodotus notes the Alcmaeonid family bribed the Oracle of Delphi priestesses, one of ancient Greece’s most powerful mystical forces. Dating back to 1400 BC, people all over Greece and beyond came to have their questions answered by the Pythia, the high priestess of Apollo. Writes Cecilia Tortajada and Asit K. Biswas in The Conversation. “The wealthy Alcmaeonid family offered to lavishly rebuild the Temple of Apollo with “Parian marble” after an earthquake had destroyed it. In return, Pythia convinced the nation-state Sparta to help the family to conquer and rule Athens. Since it worked, Aristotle noted, even gods can be bribed!”

The Renaissance Papacy was not a stranger to bribery. King Charles VIII of France reportedly bribed cardinals in 1492 to ensure the election of a French pope. This was a common practice, and the first conclave held in the Sistine Chapel was filled with bribery money. Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI, was allegedly elected through bribery. He also faced accusations of nepotism and violence against rivals. 

And, of course, there is the United States. The Museum of Political Corruption (I did not know there was such a thing) has cataloged a cornucopia of corruption. Sadly, our Founding Father, a man immune to most corruption, was not above providing a little incentive to special voters.  “In 1758, George Washington’s campaign for the Virginia House of Burgesses spent 39 pounds, 6 shillings (roughly $8,000 today) on alcohol and food to treat voters on Election Day. This was not considered unusual at the time. Indeed, Washington might have lost his first campaign in 1755 “largely because he didn’t put on an alcohol-laden circus at the polls.”

In the mid-1790s, we witnessed the Yahoo Scandal, “This episode occurred in Georgia, where the state legislature allowed for the sale of large tracts of land to speculators at cut-rate prices. “Every member of the legislature -- with a single exception -- who voted for the bill was a shareholder in the purchases.”

Anti-corruption law expert Matthew Stephenson writes, “In the US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, we find several forms of corruption that will be quite familiar to students of contemporary corruption. While the political machines tended to dominate local governments, the practice of buying and selling public offices or using government appointments to purchase political support was widespread at the national level as well. Third, wealthy business interests corrupted politicians to receive favorable treatment by the government.”  

I recommend reading pieces on the Erie War as the fight for the railroad led Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould to purchase politicians and judges like they were selection socks at Walmart.  Of course, Stephenson does not point out that it was not just business interests but also unions and farmers’ guilds who participated in this chicanery.  The Civil Service reforms, especially those begun under Chester Arthur, helped curb some of these practices.  In one of our great ironies, Arthur, as a key figure in the port of New York, was notorious for taking payments of all kinds.  Yet after the assassination of President James A Garfield, Arthur seemed to change from a former corrupt official to an anti-corruption crusader.  This did not endear him to his former mates, such as Rosco Conklin, a Senator from New York.  

One of the first scandals to affect the presidency itself was Crédit Mobilier. Revealed in 1872, it exposed a fraudulent scheme involving the Union Pacific Railroad and a shell company, Crédit Mobilier of America. The scheme involved using this entity to secretly funnel profits from building the Union Pacific Railroad into its investors’ pockets and bribe influential politicians. The scandal involved inflated contracts and the sale of shares at reduced prices to members of Congress to secure their support for the project. 

Another famous scandal was Teapot Dome.  In the early 1920s, this scandal entailed the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Bacon Fall. After U.S. Pres. Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the Navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome (Wyoming) reserves. He granted similar rights to Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum Company for California’s Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills reserves.

In both of these presidential cases, neither White House occupant was directly involved, so they did not become the subject of a possible impeachment, though Harding died not long after. The issue was that the lead dogs were not watching their pack very well.  

But compared to many other nations, the likes of Teapot Dome are small potatoes. 

Brazil’s most significant corruption scandal codenamed Lava Jato (carwash), unearthed a vast and extraordinarily complex web of corruption. Directors of Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company, used a slush fund to pay politicians who had appointed them to support the election campaigns of the governing coalition.

Lava Jato ensnared politicians and business leaders from 11 countries, ranging from Brazil to Peru. It sidelined Brazil’s most popular resident, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who served a prison sentence.  Then his successor, Dilma Rousseff.  The petition also accused Rousseff of criminal responsibility for failing to act on the scandal at the Brazilian national petroleum company, Petrobras, on account of allegations uncovered by the Operation Car Wash investigation and for failing to distance herself from the suspects in that investigation.  

Rousseff was President of the Petrobras board of directors during the period covered by the investigation and approved Petrobras’ controversial acquisition of the Pasadena Refining System. And not just Brazil. The case forced the Peruvian President, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, to resign when confronted with an impeachment vote.  

Brazil has the distinction of simultaneously having two consecutive presidents in jail for corruption. The cherry on this excrement sundae is that once out of jail, Lula ran for President and is the current President of the largest nation in South America. Ah, Brazil is the country of the future, and it will always be when their people elect such magistrates.  

But these days, the US is different from these examples. Well, if we include the state of IL, not that much.  The land of Lincoln has the distinction of having two consecutive governors, Jim Ryan, who steered lucrative state government contracts and leases to friends and government insiders who gave him and his family vacations, gifts, and cash, and Rowdy Rod Blagojevich, who tried to sell an open Senate seat to whoever could provide with largest cash donatives.  This estimable friend of Trump, who received a pardon from the current President, states, “There’s an opportunity here. I’m going to offer in good faith to make a good decision for the US senator [seat], but it is not coming for free.”

This brings us to Donald Trump and the proposed “gift” from the Emirate of Qatar. The Qatari royal family proposed giving the United States a 13-year-old, $400 million “flying palace” jet because of delays in Boeing’s new Air Force One fleet production. The scheme is to provide the jet not directly to Trump but instead to the Department of Defense, and then later, it will become part of Trump’s presidential library upon leaving office.  

There are three ways to look at this:

First, does this pass the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution?  Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution “prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts, emoluments, titles, or offices from foreign governments or kings without congressional consent.” Not very ambiguous.  

But aha, says Trump and his lickspittles, it is not going to a single official but rather to our nation! “Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done?” he adds. “The Boeing 747 is being given to the United States Air Force/Department of Defense, NOT TO ME!” 

Aside from the fact that Americans will not use the plane, it will be done by one single American who just so happens to be the chief executive of our Republic, and he chooses to allow anyone on board. I am certain my invite was lost in the mail. So, a government official does stand to benefit from this. The rest of us do not.  

Also, I have several truisms that frequent listeners can now recite by heart.  One of them, whether related to Obama phones, free student lunches, or Biden’s transfer of student loans from the borrowers to non-borrowers, nothing is free.  Let me repeat that: nothing is free.  Someone has to pay, and the giver wants to be paid.  

It is of note that Pam Biondi signed off on the legality of his. Up to her Attorney General confirmation, Biondi received a $115,000 PER MONTH stipend from… Qatar! So either she is one of the most objective humans on the planet, or the Qataris are getting their money’s worth. 

Ann Coulter, author of In Trump We Trust, attempted to defend the gift.  “I can’t wait for the press to find out about France’s so-called “gift” of the Statue of Liberty, accepted in 1886 by then-President Grover Cleveland,” Always interesting the rhetorical pretzels Trump defenders twist themselves.  The purpose of the Statue of Liberty was clear: a statue to all of the people of the United States that can be clearly seen from lower Manhattan, not to anyone official.  It was a statue, not, let’s say, an opulently appointed trans-Atlantic steamer for Cleveland’s sole use. It was France, not a jihadist sponsor of terrorism. The purpose was propaganda for a France that had just 15 years earlier thrown off the 2nd Empire.  It was meant to be as much a message for the French people as it was for Americans.  The statue was not gifted to Cleveland after his term.  It was not like he would hustle Lady Liberty to Princeton, New Jersey, where the 22nd and 24th President chose to retire.  C’mon, Ann, you can do better than this.  

Two, who is doing the giving? Qatar is a sponsor of Hamas, housing its leadership.  The funder for Al Jazeera, the anti-Israel, often anti-American media platform.  They are the one Sunni nation with close ties with Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of Islamic terrorism.  They run slave gangs to complete their building projects.  

Now, I want to be clear about this.  I do not think Trump should be taking a $400 million plane for his use from Britain or Australia for the reasons elucidated above.  Even those nations would be looking for a quid pro quo.  But in terms of policies, what would they want?  Lower tariffs? Greater defense guarantees? Access to American research?  Compare that to what the Qataris want—a freer hand to promote terrorism, including Hamas, protection for their buddy Iran, and abandonment of Israel.  

Trump should not take the plane based purely on ethics from anyone, but if who matters is this, who is astonishing? 

Third, the very act of taking this is silly from a security and funding perspective in the first place.  Air Force One is unlike you or me boarding a 737 from Ohare to DFW.  Movies often get the presidency wrong, but one accurate thing is that AF1 is meant to be a flying Oval Office from which the President can direct the executive branch and, even more importantly, our defense as Commander in Chief.  Communications emanating from the plane must be protected with the best possible security, and we are not talking signal chat here. A President could direct a nuclear submarine to begin a missile attack as one example.  

Boeing is notoriously taking so long to replace the current version because AFI needs to be fitted for the possibility that the President is directing a war from the jet.  It does not take a great leap of understanding to know that such a gift would have to be torn apart and put back together so that Qataris and their Iranian friends are not listening in on what the executive branch and Department of Defense are doing.  Homer wrote some 3200 years ago that people should beware of gifts from the Greeks.  But we are not talking about a troop of heavily armed Achaeans, but rather high-tech monitoring equipment that could be embedded in almost any on a jet that contains 6 MILLION parts.  

Of course, security is not at the top of Trump’s mind, “You know, we’re the United States of America. We should have the most impressive plane,” Trump told Sean Hannity after pointing out that Air Force One is nearly 40 years old and looks “much less impressive” than planes in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.” So, does President America First need to take a plane from another nation?  

Anyone who has been paying attention over the last 10 years knows why Trump, the guy with gauche penthouses and pink ties, wants the plane. He thinks it is cool, and like a 5-year-old, he had better get his toy on Christmas morning, or there will be a tantrum of epic proportions. So, when he compares his plane to others, it gives the game away.

But this also relates to an issue I have addressed in my previous podcast.  What are the Qataris up to?  For over a decade, the Emirate has showered money and funds upon American institutions, particularly universities, to influence how they view the Middle East.  Do you think all of those pro-Hamas demonstrations were some organic occurrences?  Instead, the nature of anti-Israeli and antisemitic bias has been subtly, or not so subtly, fanned into flames by well-chosen contributions.  

But the plane is different.  The Trump family business is also attempting to set up a golf course in Doha, the capital of the Emirate.  Again, this sweetheart deal and the plane are a not-so-subtle attempt to affect US policy.  Should we let Israel take out Iran’s nuclear capability (IMO, yes), Trump vetoed that.  He attacked the Houthis but did not claim a cease-fire with Israel.  He has been hot to the new Sunni Radical Syrian government, whose sponsors are Qatar.  Is this a quid pro quo?  It is tough to say because some arguments can be mustered for all of these actions.  But that is just it.  How can we tell whether Trump is acting on his best judgment or whether this is about golf courses and airplanes?  

This is where, again, Congress should be involved.  Though a president has a far greater latitude in dealing with foreign affairs than domestic issues, the Constitution is clear on many points.  In article I, Congress has the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations,” “declare war,” “raise and support armies,” “provide and maintain a navy,” and “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.” However, none directly involves relations with a particular foreign power.  That is the sole job of the State Department, which reports to the President.  Not quite, “The Constitution grants the President the power to make treaties with foreign nations but requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to ratify those treaties. While the President negotiates treaties, the Senate can approve or reject them and even attach conditions or reservations to their approval.”  

And there is oversight.  Writer Jonathan Masters, in his piece “US Foreign Policy Powers: Congress and the President notes, “Congress has broad authority to conduct investigations into particular foreign policy or national security concerns. High-profile inquiries in recent years have centered on the 9/11 attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation programs, and the 2012 attack on US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.”

And yet, will the invertebrates congregating on Capitol Hill ask the necessary questions?  I think not.  Note that Bob Menendez, thankfully a former Senator from New Jersey, took Egyptian bribe money in the form of gold bars, no less. There was no record of Qatar.  And why would they?  In these days of a supine Congress and kingly POTUS, the Qataris know the right branch and apparently the right man.  Screw the back alleys and meet on dark tarmacs.  Just offer up a flying palace. 

Now as night follows dusk there are number of you right now thinking, ah AD, Clinton Foundation? The Biden family? To that I would say correct. I can provide chapter and verse on them and recommend reporting the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin on the subject.  A sample, “the Algerian government, through its embassy in Washington D.C., allegedly gave the Clinton Foundation $500,000.” They wanted American support for questionable regime.  And the Biden family?  You do not need to come here to learn of son Hunter, Brother James and the rest of the crowd sucking the blood of a infirm Biden right up to the point of the pardons.  I could note that $400 million is a scale that exceeds anything the Clintons or Biden’s imagined, combined.  And Trump’s meme coin venture could yield billions.  Yet it is not a matter of scale. I keep getting back to something I learned as a child, one of those phrases pounded into still soft mushy brain matter: two wrongs do not make a right.  Are we to be a nation of descending corruption wherein each new administration goes further downward into what, not too long ago, Trump called the swamp?  Or is some party, preferably the GOP, going to yell ENOUGH! 

On the grounds of the Constitution, the country in question, and the utility of the gift, this has to be one of the dumbest out-in-the-open scandals of my lifetime.  And it is a bribe.