Ivanka Trump’s company is coming under fire after using Sunday’s appearance on 60 Minutes as an opportunity to flog a $10,800 US bracelet.
Trump appeared on the show with her father, president-elect Donald Trump, in his first major TV interview since winning the U.S. election.
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On Monday, Monica Marder, vice president of sales for Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, sent a “style alert” email to reporters in an attempt to push a bracelet Trump wore in her appearance.
The style alert read: “Ivanka Trump wearing her favorite bangle from the Metropolis Collection on 60 Minutes” above a photo of the jewellery and a picture of Trump wearing the bracelet.
Many eyebrows were raised as some declared the email to be a conflict of interest on Twitter.
A day later, the company issued a statement to NBC News which said the email was sent by “a well-intentioned marketing employee at one of our companies who was following customary protocol, and who, like many of us, is still making adjustments post-election.”
Since the election, ethics officials have been pushing for the president-elect to either sell his business or put an independent authority in charge but thus far he has said his children and executives will be in control. Given that he owns businesses around the globe, this could create serious issues for presidential independence.
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“Now we are faced with the possibility that a son or daughter of the president will turn up in Moscow or Uzbekistan or somewhere else negotiating a deal on a new property that will bear the name of the president, and the full knowledge that the president really is an owner of the company,” Trevor Potter, a former Federal Election Commission chairman and general counsel for George H.W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, told the Washington Post in September. “That presents problems of a dimension we have never seen before.”
Trump himself said he will be hands-off in running the business during a debate last January.
“If I become president, I couldn’t care less about my company. It’s peanuts,” he said. “Run the company, kids. Have a good time.”