Trump Gave Natalie Harp and Other Aides $45,000 Each As Gifts. White House Denies Any Ethics Violation.

President Donald Trump gave three of his closest White House aides $45,000 each in holiday cash gifts, according to financial disclosures released by the administration, prompting questions from government ethics experts about whether the payments comply with federal law.

The gifts, first reported by The Washington Post, went to executive assistants Natalie Harp and Chamberlain Harris, as well as communications adviser Margo Martin. Each earns approximately $150,000 annually, meaning the payments represented nearly one-third of their government salaries. The disclosures described the money as "Cash Gift for Holidays."

The payments, disclosed in filings made public late last week, have drawn scrutiny because federal law restricts the supplementation of government salaries from outside sources. Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told The Post that the gifts appear to violate that prohibition.

"He's clearly trying to make it easier for them financially to work in government service at the White House," Painter said. "You can't do that." The White House rejected the suggestion that the payments broke any rules.

Spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people close to him, including employees in both government and the private sector. "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," Ingle said.

The three women did not immediately respond to The Post's requests for comment. Harp, 35, is one of Trump's most constant companions and is known inside the White House as the "human printer" because she carries a portable printer to provide him with hard copies of news articles and social media posts. She previously worked for One America News and joined Trump's staff in 2022 after leaving the network.

Her proximity to the president has attracted renewed attention following The Post's reporting on a secret plane transfer in Turkey, when Harp was among a small group of aides who accompanied Trump as he changed aircraft under concealment because of a potential Iranian assassination threat.

Martin, 31, is a communications adviser who frequently films the president's daily activities for social media. She began working in the White House in 2019 and continued working for Trump after he left office in 2021. Harris, 26, also served during Trump's first term and was appointed in February to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which has oversight of the president's White House ballroom project and other Washington-area construction.

A fourth longtime aide, Walt Nauta, reported receiving a $20,000 gift from Trump. Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, earns $175,000 annually. He previously served as Trump's valet and was a co-defendant in the federal classified-documents case. A judge dismissed the charges in 2024 after ruling that special counsel Jack Smith had been improperly appointed.

The four aides share longstanding ties to Trump, including work for him in Florida between his two presidencies. Government ethics experts told The Post they were unaware of comparable public examples of presidents giving White House employees cash payments of this scale. However, they differed over whether the gifts necessarily violate federal law.

Don Fox, a former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics during the Obama administration, said the available facts did not establish a violation. He explained that the salary-supplementation prohibition could apply if the money were intended to compensate employees for accepting lower government pay than they could earn in the private sector.

Fox nevertheless described the payments as "troublesome," saying such large gifts could make employees feel indebted to their superior."I would feel somewhere between really uncomfortable and then beholden to the person who gave me such a large gift," he said.