Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner: new role as DC power couple raises alarm

Source: The Guardian

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner: new role as DC power couple raises alarm

Ethics experts renew concerns over nepotism and conflicts
of interest inherent in Trump’s son-in-law as senior adviser
and Ivanka’s role in the family business

Lauren Gambino in Washington
Tuesday 10 January 2017 19.57 GMT

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are poised to become one of the most powerful couples in the US.

Donald Trump’s eldest daughter and her husband, who played crucial roles in directing Trump’s campaign, now sit at the helm of his transition team, along with Trump’s sons, and, on Monday, Trump named Kushner a senior adviser to the president, an appointment that has raised questions about potential conflicts of interests and drawn accusations of nepotism.

Trump described his son-in-law, a New York real estate executive and publisher of the weekly New York Observer, as a “tremendous asset and trusted adviser throughout the campaign and transition” and praised him as “incredibly successful, in both business and now politics”. Ivanka, who serves as executive vice-president of development and acquisitions of the Trump Organization and has her own fashion line, is not expected to have a formal role in the administration.

As the couple prepare to move their family from New York to Washington, his appointment and her continued involvement in the family business open the administration up to new claims of conflicts of interest when it has far from resolved its approach to those of Donald Trump himself.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/10/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-nepotism-conflicts-of-interest