President Trump makes no secret of his displeasure over the cost of renovating Federal Reserve headquarters – around $2.5 billion, or even higher by his accounting.But getting White House to discuss another of Washington’s expensive renovation projects, the cost of refurbishing a “free” Air Force One from Qatar, is quite another matter. Officially, and conveniently, the price tag has been classified. But even by Washington standards, where “black budgets” are often used as an excuse to avoid revealing the cost of outdated spy satellites and lavish end-of-year parties, the techniques being used to hide the cost of Trump’s pet project are inventive.Which may explain why no one wants to discuss a mysterious, $934 million transfer of funds from one of the Pentagon’s most over-budget, out-of-control projects – the modernisation of America’s aging, ground-based nuclear missiles.In recent weeks, congressional budget sleuths have come to think that amount, slipped into an obscure Pentagon document sent to Capitol Hill as a “transfer” to an unnamed classified project, almost certainly includes the renovation of the new, gold-adorned Air Force One that Trump desperately wants in the air before his term is over. (It’s not clear if the entire transfer will be devoted to stripping the new Air Force One back to its airframe, but Air Force officials privately acknowledge dipping into nuclear modernisation funds for the project.)Qatar’s defence minister and US defence secretary Pete Hegseth signed the final MoU a few weeks ago, paving the way for the renovation to begin soon at a Texas facility known for secret technology projects. Concerns over the many apparent conflicts of interests involved in the transaction, given Trump’s govt dealings and business ties with Qataris, have swirled since reports of the gift emerged this spring. But Trump himself said he was unconcerned. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,” the president said in May. “I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.‘”It is free in the sense that a used car handed over by a neighbour looking to get it out of his driveway is free. In this case, among the many modifications will be hardened communications and antimissile systems. And there is the delicate matter of ridding the jet of any hidden electronic listening devices that officials suspect may be embedded in the walls. Then it has to be stuffed with the luxuries with which the 47th president surrounds himselfSo it’s no surprise that one of Washington’s biggest guessing games these days is assessing just where the price tag will end up, on top of the $4 billion already being spent on the wildly-behind-schedule presidential planes that Boeing was supposed to deliver last year. It was those delays that led Trump to look for a gift.“The security implications of accepting a private plane from a foreign nation as Air Force One and the resulting ethical concerns … were already significant,” said senator Jeanne Shaheen (D), who serves on Armed Services Committee. But it was more worrisome, Shaheen said, that “this administration is diverting funds from nuclear modernisation budget to finance costly renovations to this plane.” In doing so, she said, “we’re weakening our credibility to fund a vanity project for President Trump.”
