(From my Notes to My Future Self series.)

On July 1, Donald Trump took the first flight on his brand new Air Force One, a $400 million Boeing 747 given to the United States by the royal family of Qatar.

The Air Force has spent months and up to $400 million more in taxpayer money retrofitting the fourteen-year-old luxury jet. Trump praised his benefactors, saying America “wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary” to build him such a plane.

The ownership arrangement routes the gift through the Defense Department. Before he leaves office, ownership transfers to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation and the plane follows him home.

Two hundred fifty years ago, our nation’s founders declared independence from a king. In the Constitution they wrote a specific rule: no officeholder may accept any present “from any King, Prince, or foreign State” without the consent of Congress. Congress has given no consent.

The founders had observed European courts, where monarchs bound men to them with gifts. One imagines they would know what a $400 million present might buy.

Our nation celebrates its birthday this week while the president flies in a gift from a royal court.