As a retired Army Officer, I often
sport a hat emblazoned with U.S. Army Retired. I like wearing it. After all, I
spent twenty-seven years as a soldier, NCO, and officer. Due to our current
cultural climate, many people stop and thank me for my service, to which I
reply, “It was my honor and privilege to serve.” And it was.
Not everyone can serve, and many who
start a career shipwreck their service on a variety of different shoals, drug
use, DWI, excessive debt, and a variety of other improprieties. Serving our
nation in the military is a privilege. Sometimes a person’s behavior limits or
curtails the privilege to serve. Among the behaviors is accepting a gift, or
emolument. Marriam-Webster defines emolument as: the returns arising from
office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites.
Interestingly the older meaning of emolument is an advantage.
Most of the time, this does not
figure in an officer’s career. But as a member of the Signal Corps, this played
a fairly significant role in my career. As a Signal Officer, I constantly dealt
with contractors. I oversaw contractors in the fulfillment of their contract. I
worked with contractors seeking to renew their contract. I also worked with
contractors seeking to procure a contract for equipment and services. Due to
this role, I attended numerous training sessions and briefings concerning how
to interact with contractors, and in all of them we were warned about accepting
gifts, or emoluments, from contractors. The general rule of thumb was that if
the price of the gift exceeded the price of a baseball cap, I could not accept it.
Regularly I had to graciously refuse a gift, once a contractor offered to take
me and my wife on a nice golf outing in Germany. But most of the time they knew
the rules and acted accordingly. We had to ensure that we did not even give the
appearance of inappropriate behavior; which makes the President considering
accepting the Qatari offer of a 747 rather stunning.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 7,
better known as the emoluments clause, states: The President shall, at
stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased
nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he
shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United
States, or any of them. As reported, the Qatari gift of the 747 would go
from Air Force One to the Presidential Library and be available for President
Trump’s personal use after he leaves office. It is hard for me to accept the
idea that somehow this is akin to picking up a put in golf. Even some in his
own party are very uncomfortable with such blatant disregard for the constitution.
President Clinton allowed generous
donners to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom and appropriately endured a lengthy
investigation. Our leaders must not allow even the whiff of impropriety to
cloud their ability to discharge the duties of their office. For our president
to even consider accepting such a “gift” calls into question his judgement
regarding any other transaction with the Qatari government. It also erodes
trust in his decision-making process for all other transactions.
It is a privilege to serve, and we
need leaders who understand that concept and willingly embrace the stringent
nature of public service. Public office should not be considered an opportunity
to enrich oneself at the expense of propriety, the voters, and trust in our
national institutions. Congress needs to step in and investigate. If we allow the
president to flout the constitution, how can we hold others accountable to the
same document and standard. If we enable such behavior, we enable
institutionalized graft and corruption.
How could we then look at junior officers
and tell them, “Do not accept anything more expensive than a baseball cap?”
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