A proposed $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump’s image has been prepared at the US Treasury, the Washington Post reported Thursday, a step that would put a living person on US currency for the first time in about 150 years.
Two Trump appointees at the Treasury Department began urging staff at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to prepare prototypes last year, according to the Post. The design mock-up the paper obtained also carries the words “America 250 anniversary,” marking 250 years since the US declared independence on July 4, 1776.
Printing bureau employees, speaking anonymously, told the Post that the plan raised concerns because federal law bars the depiction of living presidents on US currency. Bureau director Patricia Solimene pushed back and warned officials, including US Treasurer Brandon Beach, of legal and procedural obstacles, the employees said. Solimene was abruptly reassigned, the paper reported.
A Treasury spokesperson told the Post the printing office was “conducting appropriate planning and due diligence” in response to proposed legislation. A bill to allow Trump’s image on a $250 note was introduced in Congress last year but has not advanced.
The proposal follows other moves to attach Trump’s name or likeness to US institutions. The US Commission of Fine Arts, whose members he appointed, approved a 24-carat commemorative “Semiquincentennial Gold Coin” earlier this year, while the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts and the US Institute of Peace have been rebranded to include his name. The State Department has said his likeness will appear in some US passports.
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Senator Mark Warner, a Democratic member of the Senate banking committee, criticised the plan, saying it amounted to the White House “stoking the president’s ego.”
