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(Bloomberg) -- Qatar’s offer of a luxury Boeing 747 to President Donald Trump has set off alarm bells within the US intelligence and diplomatic community, where gifts from foreign powers have long been viewed with suspicion.
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Aside from any legal and ethical qualms about Trump accepting the plane — an 89-seater with a sumptuous French-designed interior — there are technical and security concerns too. Experts say any such gift on a foreign government’s behalf presents opportunities for surveilling, tracking or compromising communications of the president and anyone traveling with him.
“If we had built the plane, knowing it was going to a foreign government, we would probably have bugged it,” said Thad Troy, a former station chief with the Central Intelligence Agency. He recalled serving in Cold War-era Moscow when the American Embassy was being dismantled brick by brick to remove a tangle of surveillance devices embedded into the very concrete of the building.
Trump ordered up two new presidential planes from Boeing Co. for $3.9 billion during his first term. Frustrated at delivery delays, he’s been on the lookout for alternatives – and apparently had his eye on the Qatari plane even before it was offered to him as a gift this month.
Parisian Finish
The jumbo in question, built in 2012, was previously on call for Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. The 66-year-old is one of the Qatari royal family’s wealthiest figures, having served as prime minister and head of the sovereign wealth fund.
It has creamy white and tan furnishings, rugs and artwork by Cabinet Alberto Pinto, a Paris interior design firm. There are custom-made Tai Ping rugs, sycamore and wacapou wood fixtures, and artwork by Alexander Calder. The upper deck has a master bedroom and bath, guest bedroom and private lounge, and downstairs there are lounges, an office and crew areas.
The plane would need to be retrofitted to standards that Air Force One currently maintains, according to Troy. That would include a hardening of its surface to withstand explosions and attacks, and technical extras like air-to-air refueling capabilities and classified communications and weapons systems.
It would also take months if not years for defense department officials and intelligence officers to take the plane apart and thoroughly sweep it for any tracking devices or detect monitoring of systems that could, among other things, reveal the plane’s location.