Defense Department accepts $130 million from Trump

The Defense Department accepted a $130 million donation from an anonymous source to help pay active-duty service members during the government shutdown, the agency said Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement that the funds were accepted under the Defense Department’s “general gift acceptance authority.”

“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” he continued, claiming that Democrats “chose to withhold pay to troops” when they refused to pass a spending bill that would deprive millions of Americans of health care.

Trump first announced the donation offer on Thursday, saying the proposal came from a “friend of mine” who told him: “I love the military and I love the country.”

“He called us the other day and said, ‘I’d like to contribute to any shortfall you have because of the Democratic shutdown,’” Trump said.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

The administration’s secrecy around the origin of the gift raises some ethical questions, namely whether the DOD complied with its policy that all donations over $10,000 benefiting troops or their families be reviewed by ethics officials to verify that “the donor has no interests that could be materially affected” by the gift.

The DOD declined to answer what protocols it followed, nor did it say whether the donor was American or foreign.

The department also rejected questions about how much salary the donation would guarantee, but the White House said earlier this month that it needed to borrow $6.5 billion in military research and development funds to pay troops from the start of the shutdown on Oct. 1 through Oct. 15.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, told Politico that based on that total, the $130 million donation would cover about a third of a single day’s pay for active-duty service members.

Trump’s announcement came the same day the Senate failed to pass either party’s version of a bill to pay service members and some other federal workers during the shutdown, which is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history. The longest occurred during Trump’s first term and lasted 35 days.