Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) is warning that Qatar’s gift of a luxury Boeing 747-8 to the Trump administration to serve as the new Air Force One poses “significant espionage and surveillance problems,” a concern voiced by other lawmakers.
“I’m not a fan of Qatar. I think they have a really disturbing pattern of funding theocratic lunatics who want to murder us, funding Hamas and Hezbollah. And that’s a real problem,” Cruz said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Tuesday.
“I also think the plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems,” he warned. “We’ll see how this issue plays out but I certainly have concerns.”
The value of the plane is estimated at $400 million, which Qatar’s royal family offered as a gift to the United States ahead of Trump’s first major foreign trip of his second term to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump has argued that only a “stupid person” would not accept the gift, but some experts and lawmakers are questioning whether it could be fully swept for eavesdropping or other foreign intelligence equipment.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that using the Qatari plane would “pose immense counterintelligence risks by granting a foreign nation potential access to sensitive systems and communications.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, noted the plane’s extensive electrical system would be very difficult to check thoroughly for potential security vulnerabilities.
“It is completely negligent and, as far as I’m concerned, reckless to think that Air Force One where the president is asked to function as our commander in chief in a situation room, making life-or-death decisions, is on a plane given to us by a foreign government with 200 miles of wiring in it,” he said.
Asked if Durbin is concerned about espionage, he replied: “I certainly am.”
“Two hundred miles of wiring in this plane? We’re going to go through every square inch of that to make certain the Qataris or some other government doesn’t have access to the most important decisions made by our president? This is irresponsible,” he said.
Durbin said he wants to hear Attorney General Pam Bondi testify before Congress about the approval of the Qatari gift.
“Remember, she was a paid agent of the Qatari government, a lobbyist, before she became attorney general,” he said.
