State Department unable to provide full account of foreign gifts given to Trump and officials

By Jamie Crawford, National Security Producer, CNN

The State Department is unable to provide a complete list and accounting of gifts presented to former President Donald Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and other officials during the final year of the Trump administration, according to a report published in the Federal Register.

The State Department’s Office of Protocol said the Executive Office of the President did not send the department information about gifts received by Trump and others from foreign officials in 2020, according to the report.

The department has made attempts to collect the missing information from the National Archives and Records Administration and the General Services Administration, but has been told that “potentially relevant records are not available” to the protocol office “under applicable access rules for retired records,” the report says.

A footnote in the report does say that the lack of information available is complicated by the timing of the request from the State Department. It notes that the “Office of the Chief of Protocol did not submit the request for data to all reporting agencies prior to January 20, 2021 (at which time there was a change in administrations).”

A subsequent footnote in the report, though, does note a “lack of accurate recordkeeping pertaining to diplomatic gifts maintained by the Office of the Chief of Protocol’s Gift Unit” between January 20, 2017, after Trump took office, and through the end of his term in January 2021.

CNN has reached out to spokespersons for Trump.

The Associated Press first reported on the findings of the report.

The report comes as the US Justice Department has begun investigating the handling of 15 boxes of White House records, including classified information, which were taken to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after he left office.

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