President Joe Biden and his family had received expensive gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars from foreign leaders in 2023, including a priciest gift of a $20,000 diamond to the US First Lady Jill Biden from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Washington Post reported citing the State Department.
All federal employees are required to report gifts from foreign government sources valued at $480 or more, as per the US law. Most frequent recipients of foreign gifts were the president, first lady and Vice President Kamala Harris, given their positions.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were also among top US officials who had received several gifts.
The State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol had unveiled its annual accounting a day ago to provide a glimpse into the practice of gift-giving in diplomatic settings to the rulers, top government officers and secret service officials.
It stated that Modi had gifted a lab-grown 7.5-carat diamond with an estimated value of $20,000 in the presence of the president.
During his first state visit to the United States, Modi had received a gift of vintage American camera and a signed copy of “Collected Poems of Robert Frost”, among other items, reported The Washington Post.
At that time, the White House had said that Modi would receive a handmade, antique American book galley from the early 20th century as an official gift.
Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval also handed over gifts to his US counterpart Sullivan in 2023.
Sullivan’s lavish gifts included a silver statue in January 2023 and a wooden statue of elephant in July 2023.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had gifted a carpet worth $525 to President Biden in 2022, whereas, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Masood Khan handed over a carpet worth $600 to a US government’s senior director Eileen Laubacher in 2023.
The majority of gifts received by the Bidens were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration — an independent agency of the US government within the executive branch.
According to the federal agency, a president might receive 15,000 gifts a year in modern times.
According to the report, several employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including its director William J Burns had also received lavish gifts worth more than $132,000, including watches, diamond jewellery, and perfumes.
A couple dozen gifts listed in the report to the CIA employees were “destroyed”, including an Omega watch worth $11,000 that was given to Burns.
The report did not disclose who gave the gifts that were destroyed, read the US publication.
It cited the US Code, which states that the head of an agency within the intelligence community can request the exclusion of certain information “if the publication of such information could adversely affect United States intelligence sources or methods”.
A CIA employee had received a women’s jewellry set consisting of a necklace, bracelet, ring and earrings which was also among the destroyed gifts.
