The Pentagon accepted an anonymous $130 million donation from a “friend” of President Donald Trump to help pay military members during the government shutdown, a Defense Department spokesman said Friday, although the amount will cover only a fraction of the pay owed to soldiers.
Key data
Trump disclosed the donation on Thursday and the Pentagon said on Friday that it accepted the money “under its general gift acceptance authority,” spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to multiple outlets.
Trump said the money came from “a friend of mine” who “really doesn’t want the recognition.”
It’s unclear what budget maneuvers the administration will use to ensure the donation is legal: Donations over $10,000 must be reviewed by ethics officials to ensure “the donor has no interests that could be substantially affected” by the gift, Politico reported, citing Department of Defense rules.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., questioned in a statement to CNN whether the donation is a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits the federal government from spending money that has not been appropriated by Congress.
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big number
6.5 billion dollars. That was the cost of military salaries to the federal government in the first half of October, according to the White House. This means that the private donation would cover a third of the military’s daily salary, Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, told Politico.
Chief Critic
“The Antideficiency Act explicitly states that private donations cannot be used to offset a disruption in appropriations,” Bill Hoagland, former Senate GOP budget adviser and senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, told CNN. “I think they could accept it, but they couldn’t use it for that purpose because the law is very clear.”
Key background
The federal government used research funds to pay the military in mid-October, although it is unclear how its next payment will be funded. Other federal employees did not receive their first full payments on Friday, as the shutdown entered its fourth week and a standalone bill to pay federal employees failed to pass the Senate on Thursday.
This article was originally published by Forbes US
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