Like Father, Like Daughter: Ivanka Accused of Violating Emoluments Clause

President Donald Trump's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka will receive more than a million dollars from the family business this year, according to McClatchy's D.C. bureau, raising fresh concerns about apparent conflicts of interest that seem rampant among key members of the Trump administration.

Ivanka Trump, as an unpaid senior adviser at the White House, has done "everything from lobbying the Senate on tax policy to representing her father at a G20 summit of world leaders"--but that's not stopping her from taking money from businesses associated with the Trump Organization, "the sprawling family real estate empire now run by two of her brothers." As McClatchy reports:

When her father was sworn in, Ivanka Trump resigned her numerous vice president positions with the Trump Organization but she planned to continue to receive money from its businesses, according to her financial disclosure report filed last year, which outlined her future relationship to the companies.

Each year starting in 2017, she was expected to receive a total of $1.5 million from three companies affiliated with the Trump Organization. She was expected to receive more money from additional Trump Organization businesses but the other amounts were not detailed.

The companies involve at least five projects that have come under scrutiny for possible ethics and legal violations.

Her "continued relationship with the businesses affiliated with the Trump Organization creates countless potential conflicts of interest prohibited by federal law and federal ethics standards as she works as a special assistant to the president," McClatchy explained. "And just like her father, she is being accused of violating the so-called emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution that forbids government officials--not just presidents--from accepting gifts from foreign governments without the approval of Congress."

While watchdog groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have primarily targeted the president, CREW executive director Noah Bookbinder said that ultimately, the concerns extend to Ivanka, too. "You really still have conflicts of interest for any matter concerning that company," he concluded.

"To the extent she's still taking money and she's still in the West Wing she has many of the same issues" as her father, added Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at Common Cause, which has examined the president's potential conflict of interests.

The report comes as Ivanka Trump's husband, Jared Kushner--who is also a senior adviser to the president--faces increasing scrutiny over potential conflicts of interests with regard to his White House post and his continued involvement with his family's real estate firm.

"Ivanka Trump is believed to still have only an interim security clearance nearly 14 months into her father's tenure because of the complex finances of her husband," McClatchy notes. However, according to experts on clearance guidelines, "her continued ties to the family businesses, whose developent deals often involve international financing and buyers, could actually be causing the delay."