Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to close aide Natalie Harp and others

US President Donald Trump gave tens of thousands of dollars in cash gifts last year to executive assistant Natalie Harp and three other close aides working in the West Wing, according to financial disclosures released by the White House.

The payments raise ethics concerns because federal employees are generally barred by statute from receiving compensation beyond their government salaries.

Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris each received $45,000, described in their disclosures as “Cash Gift for Holidays.”

The payments were equivalent to roughly one-third of the aides’ federal salaries of $150,000 per year, according to the White House annual personnel report to Congress. Walt Nauta, another aide who works as the director of Oval Office operations, received $20,000 in cash, the disclosures show. His annual compensation is $175,000.

The Washington Post first reported the gifts yesterday.

“A White House staffer is not your Fifth Avenue doorman,” Richard W. Painter, a law professor who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer between 2005 and 2007 under President George W. Bush, writes in a social media post.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle says the gifts complied with ethics rules.

“The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector,” Ingle says in a statement. “The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”

Harp and Nauta are among Trump’s most trusted aides, with near-constant access to the president during long days on the road or at the White House.