Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s senior adviser, promoted Ivanka Trump’s line of clothing and accessories during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” early Thursday, imploring viewers to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.”
“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff, is what I would tell you.” Conway said. “I hate shopping but I’m going to go get some for myself today.”
The hashtag #BuyIvanka is widely circulating on Twitter on Thursday.
{mosads}”I’m going to give it a free commercial here, go buy it today,” Conway said.
Chris Lu, former deputy secretary of Labor, on Thursday tweeted a screenshot of the federal ethics law he believes Conway broke with her comments.
“This is the federal ethics law that @KellyannePolls just violated,” Lu tweeted, tagging the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Lu highlighted a portion that says: “An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives.”
The law applies to employees of an “agency,” which is defined as “an Executive department, a Government corporation, and an independent establishment.”
Conway’s comments on Fox News’s morning show come after President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s clothing line.
“My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!” Trump tweeted.
Former President Obama’s ethics czar said Thursday that Trump’s criticism of the retail giant for dropping his daughter’s apparel brand is “an abuse of the office of the presidency.”
“It is an example of why Donald Trump and his family needed to step away, needed to make a more definitive break,” Norm Eisen, who later served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic under Obama, told MSNBC’s Katy Tur.
“And I think it’s an abuse of the office of the presidency. He’s putting the bully in the bully pulpit.”
This report was updated at 10:06 a.m.