Administration

Ivanka Trump will have an official White House position

President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump will be an official government employee and serve in the White House as an unpaid senior adviser to her father, the New York Times first reported Wednesday.

Ivanka Trump, who currently has a West Wing office, initially said she’d work with in her father’s administration in an informal advising capacity.

But she appears to have changed her plans after critics pointed out that an informal role would allow her to avoid certain ethics rules and required disclosures that come with serving in the government. 

Ivanka Trump will now be special assistant to the president.

{mosads}Jared Kushner, her husband, similarly serves in the administration as a senior adviser to the president.

“I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the president in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House Office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement Wednesday.

“Throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House Counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role,” she added.

“We are pleased that Ivanka Trump has chosen to take this step in her unprecedented role as First Daughter and in support of the President,” a White House spokesperson wrote in a statement. 

“Ivanka’s service as an unpaid employee furthers our commitment to ethics, transparency, and compliance and affords her increased opportunities to lead initiatives driving real policy benefits for the American public that would not have been available to her previously,” the spokesperson continued.

Jamie S. Gorelick, Ivanka Trump’s lawyer, told the Times that she formally joined the White House because of “her commitment to compliance with federal ethics standards and her openness to opposing points of view.”

“She will file the financial disclosure forms required of federal employees and be bound by the same ethics rules that she had planned to comply with voluntarily,” Gorelick added.