February 9, 2017

Did Kellyanne Conway Just Break Federal Ethics Rules by Promoting Ivanka Trump’s Clothing Line?

Experts say the top Trump aide went too far.


Update, 12:47 p.m.: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is chaired by Norm Eisen, has filed an ethics complaint calling for an investigation into Conway’s remarks.

Ethics lawyers are alleging that a top White House aide may have broken federal ethics rules Thursday when she urged Fox News viewers to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.” Kellyanne Conway, who serves as a counselor to President Donald Trump, made the remarks while defending a tweet that Trump published Wednesday attacking Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s fashion line. (The president and members of his administration claim the department store’s move was politically motivated.)

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would tell you,” Conway said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. “I hate shopping, but I’m going to get some myself today.” She later added, “It’s a wonderful line. I own some of it. I’m going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.”

The comments sparked immediate criticism from prominent ethics experts, including Campaign Legal Center general counsel Lawrence Noble and Norm Eisen, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under Barack Obama. They suggested Conway’s statements may have violated a regulation prohibiting federal employees from using their government positions “to endorse any product, service or enterprise.”

The controversy follows a similar firestorm on Wednesday, when Trump accused Nordstrom of treating his daughter “unfairly” by announcing it would stop carrying her clothing line. The department store company, however, has cited what it said were declining sales as the reason for its decision.

“Clearly, the Trumps feel some of this is related to politics. But whether that’s true or not, these marketing battles need to be fought by Ivanka and her company,” Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, told the Washington Post. “They cannot and should not be fought by government employees and the White House. It’s time to move beyond the mind-set and the role of a businessman and assume the mantle of commander of chief.”

When asked about the president’s tweet Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer condemned Nordstrom’s announcement as a “direct attack” on the president.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Conway’s remarks.

This story has been revised.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate