The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
White House adviser ‘counseled’ after plug
Promotion of Ivanka Trump line draws ethics outcry.
NEW YORK — The White House has “counseled” a top aide to President Donald Trump after she promoted Ivanka Trump’s fashion line during a national cable television appearance from the White House.
But House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz says that’s not enough, calling what Kellyanne Conway did “wrong, wrong, wrong, clearly over the line, unacceptable.”
The Utah Republican congressman said he will join with Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee’s top Democrat, to ask the Office of Government Ethics to review the matter. Chaffetz also said he will write a formal letter to the White House lodging his irritation.
He said White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s remark that Conway has been “counseled” doesn’t go far enough.
“It needs to be dealt with,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
The White House later in the day said the president “absolutely” continues to support Conway and “understands she was merely sticking up for a wonderful woman who she has great respect for and felt was treated unfairly.”
The White House said Trump also “fully supports his daughter.”
The ethics dustup began Wednesday with the president himself. Reacting to news that the Nordstrom department store chain had dropped his daughter’s line of clothing and accessories, Trump tweeted — and retweeted from the official presidential account — that Ivanka Trump had been treated “so unfairly by @ Nordstrom.”
Ivanka Trump does not have a specific role in the White House but moved to Washington with her husband, Jared Kushner, who is one of Trump’s closest advisers. She followed her father’s approach on business ties by handing over operating control of her fashion company but retaining ownership of it.
In a Thursday morning interview with Fox News from the White House briefing room, Conway urged people to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff,” boasting that she was giving the brand “a free commercial here.”
While Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are not subject to ethical regulations for federal employees, Conway, who is a counselor to the president, is. Among the rules: An employee shall not use his or her office “for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise.”
“For whatever reason, the White House staff evidently believes that they are protected from the law the same way the president and vice president are,” said Stuart Gilman, a former special assistant to the director of Office of Government Ethics.
He called the Conway comments “unbelievable,” adding that they risk wrecking the U.S. reputation around the world as a model for government employee ethics.
In addition to the House Oversight Committee, two liberal-funded government watchdogs pounced on Conway’s comments, filing ethics complaints with the Office of Government Ethics, which advises and oversees federal employees on such issues but is not an enforcement agency.
“Conway’s action reflects an ongoing careless disregard of the conflicts of interest laws and regulations by some members of the Trump family and Trump administration,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen.
The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington also lodged a complaint.
Spicer said Wednesday that Trump was responding to an “attack on his daughter” when he posted the tweet and that “he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.”
Ethics lawyers had a different interpretation. The implication, intended or not, they said, is that if anyone takes an action that hurts Trump’s daughter’s business, and the Oval Office will come after them.
“This is a shot across the bow to everybody who is doing business with Trump or his family,” said Norman Eisen, who was President Barack Obama’s chief ethics counselor. “It’s warning them: Don’t withdraw their business.”
Though Trump has tweeted about companies such as Boeing, Carrier and General Motors, ethics experts say this time was different because it involved his daughter’s business, raising conflict-of-interest concerns.