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President Donald Trump has doled out around $150,000 in cash gifts to three young, loyalist White House employees, including his controversial executive assistant Natalie Harp.

The gifts were detailed on disclosure forms, which federal workers are required to fill out each year. The payments were officially listed as “Cash Gift for Holidays” on all three of the staffers’ disclosures.

Each payment was $45,000 in cash gifts, amounting to around a 33 percent increase in the staffers’ annual salaries. The payments could violate a federal law prohibiting salaries from being supplemented by other sources, including through the disbursement of cash gifts.

Trump is “clearly trying to make it easier for them financially to work in government service at the White House,” former White House ethics chief Richard Painter told The Washington Post. “You can’t do that.”

The payments were gifted to young women who work closely with Trump, including Harp, who is 35; 26-year-old Chamberlain Harris, who serves as deputy director of Oval Office operations; and 31-year-old communications adviser Margo Martin.

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