‘Larger-than-life’ missing Trump painting found in Miami hotel

A massive painting of Donald Trump gifted to him while he was in office was discovered in one of his Miami hotels this week — just days after House Democrats featured the piece in a report on his administration’s mishandling of foreign gifts. 

The portrait, described in the House Oversight Committee report as “larger-than-life sized,” was given to Trump, 76, by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in November 2020.

The artwork is one of numerous gifts that Democrats on the committee say Trump and his family failed to disclose, and up until Thursday the whereabouts of the painting had been unknown. 

The New York Times reported that the 8-foot-tall painting was located at the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami, sitting outside an electrical room and propped up on old yoga mats.

The piece of art has been sitting there for at least five months. 

In their March 17 report, Oversight Committee Democrats said federal regulations on presidential gifts from foreign leaders were violated by the Trump administration, explaining that the painting should have been handed over to the National Archives or purchased from the General Services Administration, if Trump wanted to keep it, at the end of his presidency. 

“There are no records of the painting’s disposition. NARA had no records of this painting and GSA also had no records for the purchase of this gift,” the report found. 

The artist behind the portrait told the New York Times Thursday that he is glad to hear that his masterpiece is safe, after it was reported as lost by US government officials.

“I am happy that the painting is intact, it is beautiful, precious,” Francisco Antonio Lopez Benavides told the outlet. 

He added that it “is my greatest wish that everything will be better in the world and that this painting will be with President Trump, because it is a gift from my president, Nayib Bukele, and I am a part of it. We are all President Trump and President Bukele.”

Among the presidential gifts still missing are golf clubs valued at more than $7,000 that Trump received from the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, including a $3,755 gold driver he received as president-elect, a putter valued at $460 and another driver worth  $3,040, according to Oversight Committee Democrats.