Something stunning has just taken place. GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz—chair of the House Oversight Committee and Clinton investigation enthusiast—found White House aide Kellyanne Conway's attempt to hawk Ivanka Trump merchandise just too egregious to ignore. After Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings sent Chaffetz a letter recommending that Conway’s “Buy Ivanka's stuff” pitch be referred to the Office of Government Ethics, Chaffetz agreed.
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Chaffetz has repeatedly eschewed ethics questions about Donald Trump, but Conway’s White House plug for Ivanka’s line was apparently beyond the pale.
"I'm going to give a free commercial here," Conway told Fox & Friends viewers Thursday morning, the White House emblem flanking her left shoulder. "Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.”
Chaffetz had already endured 24 hours of heat over Trump’s Wednesday tweet saying Ivanka had been treated “so unfairly” by Nordstrom because the store dumped her fashion line for underperforming. “All the things facing this nation,” Chaffetz told CNN of Trump’s tweet, “this is not in the top 757 of the most important things out there.”
One of the laws Cummings referenced in his letter to Chaffetz was an executive order issued by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 stating that government employees "shall not use public office for private gain." To use a top-of-mind quote, that seems like something even a "bad high school student" would understand.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer wasn’t keen on exploring the topic at Thursday’s briefing. "Kellyanne has been counseled,” Spicer said, “That's all we're going to go with." Moving along. Mark my words, one of these ethics violations will eventually lead to the release of Trump’s tax returns.