In the United States, Democrats are reluctant to follow Ivanka Trump's trail
While the Democrats have launched a vast investigation in the United States against the Trump administration targeting 81 sources, there is a key figure in the president's entourage that the opposition dares not, for now, not touch: his daughter, Ivanka Trump.
"The untouchable", "the child king", "the golden beauty", the counselor in the image of an ultra-well-groomed "photogenic mother". Since Donald Trump took office, some members of the American press have sought to unravel the enigma Ivanka Trump, 37-year-old businesswoman and darling daughter of the president who has made her one of his closest advisers to the White House . These journalists are not the only ones. Among Democrats, Ivanka Trump’s affairs are increasingly open to question.
According to information taken by several media including the Washington Post, from people close to the Democrats in the House of Representatives, the possibility of opening an investigation into the eldest daughter of the president is gaining ground. The question would be whether Ivanka Trump benefited financially, in a personal capacity, from her White House position, in the context of possible conflicts of interest. What upset Donald Trump, who has repeatedly warned, threateningly, that his children should be kept out of possible federal investigations.
In October 2018, China gave the green light to the clothing and jewelry line Ivanka Trump Marks LLC for the sale of products of this brand in China. Three months earlier, the “First Daugther” had yet announced that it had put an end to its brand's activities to concentrate on its functions in Washington, which lead it to work on issues linked, among other things, to criminal justice or to the Middle East. East. These Chinese deals covered sales of handbags, sunglasses, shoes, beauty products and, strangely, even election machines.
For detractors of the Trump administration, such commercial ties, which smack of conflicts of interest, between one of Washington's figures - Donald Trump senior also made similar agreements - and the Chinese authorities were not welcome.
Investigate Ivanka Trump, a minefield for Democrats
Ivanka Trump's company had already drawn attention in February 2017, when her brand was promoted by White House Advisor Kellyanne Conway in the middle of an interview on Fox News. “Go buy some Ivanka branded products! Everyone go today. You can find them online, ”she told viewers, boosting the company's bottom line.
But above all, lately, it is the very special treatment reserved for Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, one of the president's main advisers, in the White House that has raised suspicions. Donald Trump would have insisted that his daughter and son-in-law be allowed access to top secret information, against the advice of White House staff, CNN said on March 6, supporting information already published by the New York Times in February.
In reaction to these revelations, members of the House of Representatives immediately announced the opening of an investigation into these "privileges". But for Democrats, the ground is potentially mined. In Washington, a Vanity Fair article titled “Who's Afraid of Ivanka Trump?” Recalls, there is a tacit agreement that presidents' families are not targeted in the midst of political battles. We do not touch children in this way, at the risk of being seen as a ruthless adversary.
"To attack family members is in my opinion dangerous," Gerry Connolly, elected Democrat in the House of Representatives, told the Politico news site on March 6. “It can get very personal, very quickly. And that can backfire on us. ” Others fear that such an offensive will just play Donald Trump's game, as Politico further explains. “Raising the charge against Donald Trump’s children is the thing that might arouse sympathy for a president who repeatedly denounces 'presidential harassment'.
"Trump children are not stay-at-home children"
Less politically present alongside their father than Ivanka, Donald Trump's first two sons, Donald Trump Jr., 41, and Eric Trump, 35, both at the head of the Trump Organization, are not either in the Democrats' papers. Donald Trump Jr. is suspected of having signed checks to reimburse his father's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as part of payments made to former pornographic actress Stormy Daniels who claims to have had an affair with the president.
Eric Trump would have boasted in 2014, according to the writer James Dodson, to have access to “100 million dollars in Russian banks” - which the interested party denies -, making him a potential witness in the case over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
On Thursday, March 7, Democratic leader in Congress Nancy Pelosi recalled that the positions held by Trump's children exposed them, in fact, to close scrutiny. “(Donald Trump's children) are advisers to the president. They have high level permissions. These are not children who stay at home. ”
Nancy Pelosi's statement came as elected Democrats launched a massive offensive against the Trump administration on March 4. The House Judiciary Commission has requested the surrender of documents related to 81 personalities and organizations, including Donald Trump's two sons, Eric and Donald Jr., as well as Jared Kushner. Ivanka Trump's name is not on this list.
