Ivanka Trump's Biggest Political Controversies
When Donald Trump became president of the United States, his daughter, Ivanka Trump, joined him in the White House. In 2017, the entrepreneur became an advisor to the president and was a key figure on his team throughout his tenure. While Donald faced a plethora of controversies and scandals during his time in the White House, his daughter's behavior was also placed under the microscope, with everything from her social media usage to her fashion line coming under fire over the years.
During her time as a government employee, Ivanka took her position seriously. "It's about being able to deliver for the forgotten men and women that I met over the course of two years as I campaigned around this country," she said during an appearance on CBS' "Face of the Nation" in 2019. "And over the last two and a half years as I've traveled to almost every state in this nation. It's about providing pathways to opportunity."
But even with seemingly good intentions, Ivanka — and, by extension, the Trump family — have had their fair share of backlash. From her position on those election fraud allegations to a mysterious friendship with a former British spy, here are some of Ivanka's biggest political controversies.
Ivanka Trump used her personal email for White House business
In March 2017, Ivanka Trump was made an official employee of the White House as a full-time adviser to her father and president, Donald Trump. However, the president's daughter found herself in hot water in November 2018 when it was reported by The Washington Post that she had utilized her personal email account to conduct official White House business and send hundreds of messages. Ivanka's decision to use her personal email address for correspondence in relation to her role in the presidency violated federal records rules, and it also posed potential ethical and safety breaches.
In response to the revelation, a spokesperson for Ivanka said of the issue, "While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family."
It was also claimed that Ivanka shared all of her emails with the White House for record-keeping purposes, and that she never stored the emails on a private server (like her father's 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton). Still, her decision to use her personal email account while working for the White House was certainly controversial, especially considering the hubbub Donald had brought against Clinton for doing something similar.
She seemingly supported Donald Trump's election fraud claims
Following the election in November 2020, Donald Trump had a pretty big reaction after it was projected that he had been beaten in his bid for the presidency by Joe Biden. In addition to suggesting that he had won the election, not Biden, Donald insisted that he was going to challenge the result and take the presidency for himself. It would seem that, initially at least, Ivanka Trump supported her father's plans to challenge Biden's win.
In June 2022, The New York Times reported on video footage of Ivanka discussing her father's plans to challenge the results of the presidential election. Filmed by documentary filmmakers in December 2020, Ivanka said on camera, "[Donald Trump should] continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted." In the same footage, Ivanka suggested that some votes may not have been counted correctly, saying, "I think a lot of Americans feel very, very disenfranchised right now, and really, question the sanctity of our elections, and that's not right, it's not acceptable."
Ivanka seemed to change her tune during a video deposition recorded as part of the June 2022 congressional hearings regarding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. In the video clip (via Reuters), Ivanka claimed that she didn't support Donald's suggestion that Biden's win was the result of election fraud.
Her friendship with the spy from the Russia dossier scandal
Intelligence officer Christopher Steele came to prominence after being in charge of the Russia desk as an employee of the British Secret Intelligence Service, also known as M16. Steele put together the much-publicized "Steele dossier," which suggested that President Donald Trump had ties to Russia prior to the 2016 election. According to the report, Russia helped Trump win the U.S. presidency, while allegedly holding a plethora of compromising information regarding the former reality star, which the country was able to use as leverage.
Unexpectedly, it was later revealed that Donald's daughter, Ivanka Trump, had personal ties to Steele before he released the famous dossier. Ivanka and Steele met at an event in 2007, and they remained in contact via email afterward. A source also confirmed to ABC News that Ivanka and Steele had an in-person meeting at Trump Tower, with the report suggesting that the pair discussed potential ways they could work together to benefit the Trump Organization, as she was serving as an executive vice president of the company at the time. The publication noted that a business arrangement was allegedly never formalized between Ivanka and Steele, but the pair's connection seemingly disproved the claim that Steele had a personal vendetta against Donald and his family when compiling the dossier.
She used political appearances as sales opportunities
When Donald Trump started his campaign for the 2016 presidency, Ivanka Trump was already a successful business owner in her own right. Her eponymous clothing line catered to women's office workwear, and according to Forbes, the success of Ivanka's brand wasn't negatively impacted by her father's decision to run for president. Instead, Ivanka seemingly decided to use her family's entry into politics to her brand's advantage, and that included advertising outfits worn on her campaign trail to her customers.
After Ivanka made a television appearance on "60 Minutes" alongside her dad in November 2016, her company, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, sent out a press release regarding the over $10,000 bracelet she had been wearing on the show. And this wasn't the first time Ivanka had allegedly attempted to profit from her father's political campaign. In July 2016, Ivanka gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, following which her official X, formerly known as Twitter, account shared a link for fans to shop her outfit online. Even The New York Times reported at the time on how Ivanka's decision to use political appearances to sell her brand's products was a potential conflict of interest and caused many people to question the Trump's family's business endeavors in relation to the White House.
She was shown to have lied during her deposition
In 2021, Ivanka Trump's role in Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration was called into question when Mother Jones reviewed documents related to her deposition for a lawsuit against the president's inaugural committee. The case was the result of an investigation by the attorney general of Washington, D.C., Karl Racine, into the committee responsible for organizing Donald's inauguration, alleging that charitable funds were used to overpay and enrich members of the Trump family.
During her deposition, Ivanka claimed that her role in planning the inauguration was limited, suggesting that she merely gave her opinion when asked, saying, "I really didn't have an involvement." However, according to documents obtained by Mother Jones, including an email chain involving Ivanka herself, the president's daughter and her team were heavily involved in some of the planning related to an inauguration event. Ivanka went on to volunteer her time and expertise in numerous correspondences, which seemed to contradict the information she provided during her deposition.
Her defense against Donald's sexual assault allegations
In October 2016, The Washington Post released a video clip of Donald Trump in conversation with Billy Bush, which had been recorded in 2005 for "Access Hollywood." In the shocking footage, Donald could be heard saying, "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait." He subsequently uttered the infamous phrase, "Grab them by the p****."
Donald faced a huge amount of backlash for his comments, particularly as the footage resurfaced in the run-up to the 2016 election. According to The 19th, allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior carried out by Donald have been documented throughout the decades since the 1970s, allegedly totaling nearly two dozen women.
After the footage was shared, a previous "CBS This Morning" interview with Ivanka Trump was recirculated, in which Donald's daughter defended him against allegations of groping. "Look, I'm not in every interaction my father has," Ivanka told the interviewer (via Cosmopolitan). "But he's not a groper. It's not who he is." She then claimed that Donald has the utmost respect for women and suggested the claims against her father were baseless. In a subsequent interview with NBC News, Ivanka refused to discuss allegations of her father's impropriety at all.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
She was evasive about paternity rights for same-sex couples
As an advisor to Donald Trump when he was the president, Ivanka Trump was often asked about key social issues concerning her father's campaign policies and opinions. One such incident took place in September 2016, when Cosmopolitan asked Ivanka about a childcare and maternity leave plan proposed by Donald ahead of the November 2016 election.
When pressed to elaborate on the policy's focus on maternity leave for women, while seeming to neglect paternity leave altogether, Ivanka appeared to be caught off guard. "So it's meant to benefit, whether it's in same-sex marriages as well, to benefit the mother who has given birth to the child if they have legal married status under the tax code," she told the publication. "But the original intention of the plan is to help mothers in recovery in the immediate aftermath of childbirth."
The interviewer subsequently asked Ivanka why men in same-sex couples wouldn't see any benefit from the new proposal and hadn't been factored into the policy. "The plan, right now, is focusing on mothers, whether they be in same-sex marriages or not," the former president's daughter replied, and she refused to elaborate any further on the issue. Rather than offering any understanding regarding the need for equality, Ivanka merely doubled down on her father's ideas.
Ivanka allegedly financially benefited from her White House position
When Ivanka Trump became an official advisor to Donald Trump and an employee of the White House, suggestions of nepotism abounded, along with allegations of profiteering based upon her role within the presidency. While Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, decided not to take any salaries for their advisory roles in the White House, it was later revealed that the pair made huge financial gains due to their positions.
In 2021, Crew reported that Ivanka and Kushner made approximately $172 million to $640 million while conducting their roles in the White House, which included significant financial income from the Trump Hotel's Washington D.C. location. The publication further claimed that Ivanka continued to generate income from her eponymous clothing brand as late as 2019, despite telling the government the previous year she was closing the business.
According to the report, Ivanka also allegedly benefited from the access she was granted to leaders of state from around the globe, building important links with countries such as Russia, Japan, and China, which likely benefited her brand and allowed her to gain several valuable foreign trademarks. Per the publication, Ivanka's outside income while she worked as an employee of the government was likely a huge ethical and policy breach and raised questions regarding the way presidential staff use their power and influence.
She violated an important ethics law with her social media
Ivanka Trump's activities were placed under the microscope as soon as she became involved in her father's presidential campaign, which only deepened following her 2017 appointment as an official advisor to Donald Trump in the White House. In October 2020, Crew reported that Ivanka had made a significant ethical breach by violating the Hatch Act, which disallows federal employees from promoting partisan political results.
The article pointed out that Ivanka's X account was regularly used for official White House business and to promote many of Donald's policies, which in turn meant that she would be prohibited from using her platform to engage in any sort of political activity or the potential persuasion of her followers for Donald's campaign. The publication found as many as eight instances within a two-day period in which Ivanka had violated the Hatch Act as she was working in the West Wing. In total, Crew counted at least 13 other federal employees — including Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, and Kellyanne Conway — who ignored the law.
She was forced to take the stand in Donald Trump's civil case
In November 2023, Ivanka Trump was called upon to testify in a civil fraud case leveled against her father and brothers by the New York Attorney General. The case alleged that Donald Trump and his sons, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr., had inflated their family's net worth in order to secure financially beneficial loans, which helped catapult the family to stardom and political success. Ivanka attempted to avoid testifying altogether by claiming she needed to be at home in Florida with her three children, but nonetheless was called to the stand.
As Ivanka was removed from the case as a co-defendant, she faced no charges, but her association with the trial meant that she couldn't avoid the negative press. During her time in court, Ivanka claimed that she could not recollect a number of business deals she was involved in while working for the Trump Organization. Rather than focusing on her testimony, some publications highlighted Ivanka's seemingly changed physical appearance, alleging that she may have undergone plastic surgery in her time away from the spotlight after leaving the White House.
In February 2024, Donald appealed the ruling that was subsequently made against him in the case, which required him to pay $355 million. But this total will continue to grow by approximately $112,000 each day he doesn't pay the fine.
Her feud with Nordstrom got political
In February 2017, Nordstrom announced that it would no longer be stocking Ivanka Trump's brand, citing declining sales as the reason for their decision. Many also believed that Nordstrom had cut ties with Ivanka's brand due to a customer boycott of all Trump family-owned companies, but the retailer denied this insinuation.
However, Donald Trump seemingly believed that the store had blacklisted his daughter for political reasons, and took to his X account to express his dismay at the decision. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom," he wrote. "She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!"
Members of Donald's team at the White House also came out in support of Ivanka's clothing brand, despite the fact this was a clear ethical breach of protocol, as federal employees of the executive wing are not allowed to promote commercial products for sale. Perhaps most egregiously, Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox News (via the Huffington Post), where she incited anyone watching to, "Go buy Ivanka's stuff! I hate shopping, and I will go get some myself today." Nordstrom's simple decision to stop stocking Ivanka's clothing brand created a slew of questionable governmental and ethical behavior.
Her brand faced an international unsafe labor scandal
As well as being dropped from Nordstrom, Ivanka Trump's fashion brand suffered another scandal when reports revealed that her company was being accused of human rights violations in China. In 2017, reports surfaced that two people had allegedly gone missing while investigating claims against a company that manufactured products for Trump's clothing and shoe brand, as well as an additional person being arrested for their probing.
"For years, Ivanka Trump has ignored public reports of awful labor conditions at a factory that makes her shoes," said Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, in a statement. "Now, she must decide whether she can ignore the Chinese government's apparent attempt to silence an investigation into those worker abuses."
Alongside this very serious allegation, the Fair Labor Association discovered that factory employees helping to produce Trump's products were severely underpaid. According to the report, workers received as little as $62 each week, despite working upwards of 60 hours.