(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump doled out gifts totaling $155,000 for the holidays to four staff members in 2025, according to personal financial disclosures from the aides published by the White House.
The president gave $45,000 each to Natalie Harp, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris as “cash gift[s] for the holidays,” gifts that appear to be personal, according to documents the White House made public this month.
Walt Nauta, a longtime ally of Trump’s, received a $20,000 holiday gift, according to the documents.
The aides received the gifts in addition to their six-figure salaries. Harp, the president’s executive assistant, makes $150,000 annually, according to the White House. Martin and Harris, the president’s communication adviser and deputy director of Oval Office operations, respectively, make the same. Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, makes $175,000 a year.
“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,” a White House official said in a statement to ABC News. “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, who is often seen with the president, has come under scrutiny from Democrats on the midterm campaign trail. Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff invoked her name during a rally in August, telling a crowd Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Trump is expected to fly aboard the new Air Force One gifted to the U.S. by Qatar when he travels to Ireland this week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News, marking his first foreign trip on the jet since he secretly switched planes in July while leaving a NATO summit in Turkey amid threats against him from Iran. The president previously said the plane would be updated in October.
Asked to respond to Ossoff’s remark in the Oval Office the next day, Trump said that he “would much rather do other things,” before veering into various renovation projects at the White House.
Martin and Nauta are also close to the president. Nauta, Trump’s valet during the first term, was charged alongside Trump in the special counsel investigation into Trump’s alleged taking of classified information. Martin has been a longtime staffer for Trump, dating back to his first administration, and later joined his 2024 campaign. She has been a key social media conduit for Trump, often capturing and posting up-close and behind-the-scenes content of him engaged in his duties.
Harris also served under the first Trump administration and continued working for the president in Florida after he left office. She returned to Washington to work under the second administration and was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts earlier this year.
The documents don’t include dates detailing when the gifts were given, aside from describing them as “for the holidays.” They appear to be personal gifts and in three cases list the president’s Palm Beach address.
Trump released his own financial disclosure back in June showing that he made a record amount of income for an American president, drawing in over $2.2 billion, including over $1.4 billion from various crypto ventures.
Back in July, another White House staffer’s finances came under public scrutiny after ABC News reported that Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, made more than $100,000 on Kalshi’s so-called “mention markets,” according to regulators. Perez was placed on unpaid administrative leave and later fired.
According to sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its “Mentions” market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.
Perez made $175,000 per year in his role, according to the White House.
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