Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s disclosed gifts from a longtime friend included flights to Fiji and Greece and lodging in Washington. More than $250,000 in a year, according to The Hill. Ordinary friendship brings a bottle of wine. This version brings longitude.

Democratic senators Ron Wyden and Angela Alsobrooks are asking Kennedy and security consultant Gavin de Becker for details. De Becker was a major donor to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and calls him a close friend of many years. The friendship is not a newly discovered thing. The scale of its travel amenities is rather more impressive than the average offer to help someone move a sofa.

The Hill reports about $97,000 in Fiji flights, $45,000 in Greece flights and $126,000 worth of Washington lodging. At that point, come stay whenever you like starts sounding less like hospitality and more like the launch of an airline partnership.

Do they get matching friendship bracelets, or does the relationship issue boarding groups?

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The senators argue that de Becker’s advocacy involving matters under HHS makes him a prohibited source of gifts. That is their ethics claim, not an adjudicated violation. Kennedy’s spokesperson says he complies with applicable federal ethics laws, regulations and disclosure requirements. The inquiry is supposed to test those competing positions, not turn a flight receipt into a bribery conviction.

The especially sharp question is how de Becker treated the spending: gifts or business expenses? The senators want dates and details. That distinction is where the sentimental soundtrack encounters the accountant. Nothing quite interrupts a touching story about friendship like asking which line it occupied on the tax return.

Friends can be generous. Public officials can have friends. Neither proposition magically answers what happens when the generous friend also has interests in the official’s decisions. That is why ethics rules do not consist of a photograph of two men fishing together.

Until the questions are resolved, the relationship has one undeniable distinction: it has made the phrase a place to crash sound like something requiring an international departure lounge.