Ivanka Trump to get White House office
March 21, 2017
US President Donald Trump's oldest daughter, Ivanka, will increase her role in advising her father in the White House, officials confirmed Monday.
Jan Gorelick, an attorney and ethics adviser for Ivanka Trump, told the "Politico" website that she will be given security clearance in order to access classified information, even though she will not work as an official government employee.
Federal anti-nepotism laws prevent relatives from being appointed to government positions, which has raised ethics concerns regarding Ivanka Trump's role in her father's administration.
Her husband, Jared Kushner, currently serves as a chief adviser to the president. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel recently said the president's "special hiring authority" allowed him to appoint Kushner as an adviser. Family members are allowed to be consulted as private citizens, according to Ivanka Trump's attorney and ethics adviser, Jamie Gorelick. Gorelick said this is what Trump's daughter will do.
Ivanka Trump issued a statement saying she "will continue to offer my father my candid advice and counsel, as I have for my entire life."
She has been active alongside her father throughout the first months of his presidency, attending major events with her father and other world leaders.
Ivanka Trump brought together women executives from the US and Canada to a roundtable in February that announced the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs, a special task force for working women in the US and Canada. She also sat next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday for a meeting on vocational training with the US President and German Chancellor.
kbd/gsw (AP, Reuters)