Ivanka Is Becoming a Government Employee
Ivanka Trump is officially becoming a government employee.
Just one week after it was announced that the first daughter had been given her own office in the West Wing and security clearance, but not official federal position, her role within her father's administration has been amplified yet again. She will reportedly serve as an unpaid adviser to her father, and will hold the title of special assistant to the president. This is the first time a first child has held a formal position within her father's administration.
The shift appears to stem from concerns raised over whether Ivanka would be required to follow ethics rules placed upon those who work in the White House despite not holding the designation of government employee.
Norman L. Eisen, the chief White House ethics adviser under President Barack Obama, spoke out publicly following the announcement that her compliance would be voluntary.
“If this is voluntary, what if she voluntarily decides not to do it?” he said.
She appears to have answered that sentiment in Wednesday's statement announcing her official federal position, according to the New York Times.
“I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the president in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules, and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees,” Trump's statement said.
“Throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role."
A spokeswoman for the president also commented to the Times via email. “We are pleased that Ivanka Trump has chosen to take this step in her unprecedented role as first daughter and in support of the president.”
The spokeswoman continued, “Ivanka’s service as an unpaid employee furthers our commitment to ethics, transparency, and compliance and affords her increased opportunities to lead initiatives driving real policy benefits for the American public that would not have been available to her previously.”
Regarding the issues of ethical rules, Ivanka's lawyer, Jamie S. Gorelick, said that she will file all disclosure forms required of federal employees and will "be bound by the same ethics rules that she had planned to comply with voluntarily."
However, the question of what to do with her business is somewhat complicated. Just last week, Gorelick reportedly said that there is no way to make it entirely conflict-free. “The one thing I would like to be clear on: we don’t believe it eliminates conflicts in every way,” Gorelick told Politico. “She has the conflicts that derive from the ownership of this brand. We’re trying to minimize those to the extent possible."
In order to mitigate those conflicts, Ivanka is placing the brand in a trust to be run by her brother-in-law Josh and her sister-in-law, Nicole. Her siblings-in-law will reportedly be prohibited from "entering the brand into any agreements with foreign countries or agencies" and from "using her image to sell the brand."
While Ivanka has essentially relinquished control, at this point, she retains the right to put an end to any deal that would be “unacceptable from an ethics perspective.”
Ethics dilemmas aside, some may object to Ivanka's official role in the White House with outcries of nepotism; however, her husband Jared Kushner paved the way with his title of senior advisor to the president.
The department of justice previously ruled that Trump hiring his son-in-law to serve in his administration would not be a violation of anti-nepotism laws because the statute only covers appointments within "executive" agencies, and the White House is not an executive agency. The same argument could (and certainly will) be made for Ivanka.
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