The cost to rehab the controversial luxury jet generously gifted to Donald Trump by the government of Qatar remains a mystery with the figures not being made available at the same time that there are questions about a "mysterious" Pentagon fund transfer.
According to a report from the New York Times' David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, the Pentagon has gone to great pains to hide the expense to make changes to the "free" jet that is supposed to replace the aging Air Force One.
The report notes, "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 But even by Washington standards, where “black budgets” are often used as an excuse to avoid revealing the cost of outdated spy satellites and lavish end-of-year parties," adding that the reasoning behind hiding the cost is "inventive."
That led to speculation about a recent unexplained transfer of almost a billion dollars within the Pentagon.
Writing, "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 modernization of America’s aging, ground-based nuclear missiles," Sanger and Schmitt added, "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 jet that has been descibed as a "palace in the sky."
The report adds that the plane will not be ready soon, if at all while the president is in office, and "will be transferred to the yet-to-be-created Trump presidential library after he leaves office in 2029, the president has said."
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