Is it legal to use Air Force One for campaign purposes?

[Generic Other]

I keep hearing that Trump is heading to Florida for a campaign stop. Not that he's meeting with a head of state. Or that he plans a working weekend ala Camp David. No, all I keep hearing is campaigning for 2020.

Is he violating the law? He should be paying for the gas at the very least!

[sunonmars]

1. I would think so, he should not be using AF1 for campaigning.

[pnwmom]

2. Yes, he's required to. But he's also required

to make a partial reimbursement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/16/white-house-air-force-one-will-not-be-used-as-a-prop-at-political-rally/?utm_term=.f6dccf26d154

The president is allowed to travel on Air Force One to campaign events — actually, he's required to do so and doesn't have the option of flying commercial. (The party or the campaign is expected to reimburse the government for part of the cost of the trip.) The iconic plane often appears on the campaign trail, such as when Hillary Clinton hitched a ride to a rally last summer in Charlotte with President Barack Obama and the two were photographed waving from the plane's doorway, standing next to a presidential seal.

Richard Painter — a professor of law at the University of Minnesota who was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007 and is now vice chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — agreed with the White House's plan. Painter explained that the president has to travel in Air Force One and the plane has to land, an event that his supporters are allowed to witness. But the president should put some distance between his political speech and the taxpayer-funded Air Force One.