Ivanka wanted to be at the center of it all. And now, boo-hoo, she is
The fate of the Capitol on the day of the insurrection, some White House insiders believed, rested on the slender shoulders of Ivanka Trump.
As President Donald Trump watched the mayhem unfold on Jan. 6, 2021, unwilling to intervene, it became clear to those around him that there was only one person on Earth who could get him to call off the dogs: his elder daughter.
One can only wonder what might have happened if she hadn’t interceded.
After all, it took him several hours to ask the rioters to knock it off. And even then, he did not seem particularly upset about the bloodshed and violence. “Go home,” he told them in a recorded video. “We love you, you’re very special.”
On Thursday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the bipartisan House committee investigating Jan. 6, invited Ivanka to testify about what she knew in advance and what she saw, heard and did on that awful day. She is the first Trump family member to be asked. In an eight-page letter crammed with juicy details about what the committee has learned so far, Thompson politely extended the invitation.
“We respect your privacy,” he wrote, “and our questions will be limited to issues related to January 6th, the activities that contributed to or influenced events … and your role in the White House during that period.”
Of course they need to hear from Ivanka; she was in the room where it happened.
As adviser to the president and head of the White House Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship, Ivanka was the Zelig of the Trump administration. She was everywhere, popping into view for photoops with world leaders, ducking out of sight when the heat was on and ludicrously taking credit, by her father’s insane estimation, for creating 14 million jobs.
None of Trump’s staff, apparently, had enough juice to get him to act on Jan. 6: “He didn’t say yes to Mark Meadows or Kayleigh McEnany or Keith Kellogg, but he might say yes to his daughter?” a committee member asked Kellogg when he testified.
“Exactly right,” replied Kellogg, who was also the vice president’s national security adviser.
Ivanka was right there when Trump put the screws on Pence to get him to toss out, or at least delay counting, the electoral votes of some states that Biden won.
So far, Ivanka, who has lain low after her twice-impeached father left office, has not publicly responded to the committee’s invitation. I suppose that’s understandable. She had her hands full last week.
On Tuesday, two days before Thompson’s invitation landed, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has been investigating the Trump Organization’s alleged financial chicanery, filed a detailed legal memo in state court, explaining why Ivanka, her brother Donald Trump Jr. and her father cannot refuse to respond to her subpoenas requiring them to testify about the family business.
They have preposterously claimed that her lawfully issued subpoenas, served Dec. 1, constitute an “unprecedented and unconstitutional maneuver.”
But, as James wrote in the filing, subpoenas to top and former company officials are “routine in complex financial investigations and are amply warranted here.”
It’s been comforting to watch the air of invincibility around the Trumps crumble. In the same week that Ivanka was in the spotlight for various alleged Trump family misdeeds, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay an order forcing the National Archives to turn over Trump White House documents to the House Jan. 6 committee.
Will the Trumps finally face the consequences of their bad behavior?
Fingers crossed.