Huh. Are the Trumps learning that even they face some limits on how blatantly they can sell access? Charity auction bidding to have coffee with Ivanka Trump has climbed to more than $70,000, but:
Now they may not get a chance to “Enjoy Coffee with Ivanka Trump in NYC or DC,” by winning the auction on LOT #:1182106, hosted by a New York company called Charitybuzz. The money was to go to a foundation led by Ms. Trump’s brother Eric to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospitalof Tennessee.
But Eric Trump told The New York Times on Thursday that he was considering shutting down the bidding — 10 days after it started — about an hour after The Times raised questions about the auction.
Gosh, it’s not like they could have anticipated it would be problematic to literally sell access to one of the people closest to the president-elect. By contrast:
The Obama administration prohibited any member of the first family from directly soliciting charitable donations, said Norm Eisen, who served as an ethics lawyer early in President Obama’s tenure. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, have attended occasional charitable fund-raising events, including the Congressional Black Caucus annual dinners. The Obamas also allowed their daughters’ high school to auction off magazines they had signed, Mr. Eisen said, but they did not auction off access to themselves.
Turning a profit off the Trump brand is what the Trumps do. To them, it comes as naturally as breathing—so look for repeats of this as it takes a while to sink in that selling off a trophy hunting date with Uday and Qusay is just as problematic as coffee with Ivanka is just as troubling as giving $25,000 Gold Level sponsors special access at a charity fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. (That one is already real. We’ll have to wait for the trophy hunting one.)
But of course the worst sale of Trump access isn’t conducted in public on a charity website that allows just anyone to bid. The really scary stuff is happening in private, with people who can get through to a Trump with a phone call and make their payment offer quietly.