Nepotism In The White House: How Trump's Family Is A Bigger Liability Than His Twitter Feed

WASHINGTON, DC — For the Trumps, business has always been closely tied to family. President Trump's father, Fred Trump, financed his son's start in the real estate business. The president's children took on major roles at the Trump Organization.

Now that he sits in the Oval Office and controversy envelops his administration, though, the president's eldest daughter is being lambasted for manufacturing her business's products abroad. Democrats are demanding his son-in-law Jared Kushner lose his top-level security clearance. And Donald Trump Jr. has lawyered up after the all-consuming Russia investigation has centered on him.

"From a management standpoint, when you have family members [in the workplace], the family members are treated with kid gloves," said Hana Callaghan, director of the Government Ethics Program at Santa Clara University. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

This can create significant problems in any business. When you're in public office, it's worse.

Under normal circumstances, the president's choice to work so closely with his children — his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Kushner at the White House, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump at the Trump Organization — is enough to inflame his opponents. Critics say it's wildly inappropriate for Trump's kids to run a business he said he would distance himself from as president. And the inclusion of his daughter and son-in-law at the highest levels of government without the usual qualifications, on the other hand, is seen by some as political malpractice.

But after Trump Jr. published emails last week proving the campaign was willing to work with Russia against Hillary Clinton, the president's family ties went from a liability to a cause of crisis.

It's now public knowledge that Trump Jr. and Kushner met a Russian lawyer to dig up dirt on Clinton, completely undermining the president's attempt to dismiss the investigation into his campaign as a "hoax." Trump Jr. and Kushner both face the possibility of legal consequences.

When previous stories broke about then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions each having compromising contacts with the Russian government, Flynn was forced to resign and Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager for a time who was also present at the famous meeting with the Russian lawyer, was fired before the election as his own shady ties to Russia came into view.

But as the story now ensnares Trump's son and son-in-law, Kushner has maintained a high-level security clearance and a job as a top aide to the president, and Trump Jr. continues to head up the Trump Organization. According to Politico, the Trump campaign has paid $50,000 for Trump Jr.'s lawyer as he sorts through the fallout of his ties to Russia. Reports suggest that the White House communications team helped craft some of Trump Jr.'s statements to the press.

"What would the response be if this was not a family member?" asked Callaghan. "It may be difficult to fire them."

Sometimes, firing an employee who reflects badly on the president is the administration's best move to protect itself. Trump deflected some criticism when he fired Flynn for failing to disclose the full details of his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

It's much harder for the president to dismiss someone as close to him as Kushner is.

And Kushner faces unique scrutiny in the current controversy since he did not disclose the meeting when he applied for a White House security clearance, which requires applicants to list all known contacts with foreigners. Intentionally lying on these forms is a crime punishable by prison time, and according to multiple reports, Kushner originally omitted more than 100 additional foreign contacts on the application that he later amended.

Many Democratic lawmakers are outraged that Kushner still has his security clearance after such glaring transgressions. As president, though, Trump has relatively broad authority to keep Kushner from losing his access to classified information.

Choosing to protect Kushner, however, means Trump will be subject to accusations of favoritism.

“Jared Kushner’s failure to disclose that memorable (and probably unlawful) June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney is itself a serious and independent crime under 18 USC section 1001 punishable by five years in prison, and it would no doubt justify revocation of his security clearance," Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe told The Guardian.

He continued: “If it is not revoked, the reason can only be that his father-in-law is President Trump. But that is no reason at all in a republic rather than a hereditary monarchy and under a constitution that bars titles of nobility."

Some anti-nepotism laws restrict public officials' freedom to hire family members for some of these reasons, but experts say these laws probably don't apply to staff positions in the White House.

It's also notable that Trump is far from the first president to engage in nepotism.

"It’s not unprecedented," said Callaghan, Santa Clara University's director of government ethics. She noted that President Kennedy appointed his brother Robert Kennedy to be attorney general, and President Clinton put Hillary Clinton in charge of his push to reform health care. Both of these moves drew much criticism at the time.

In addition to the managerial and disciplinary issues, nepotism in government raises issues of the public trust.

As Callaghan put it, nepotism leaves people asking: "When public officials give positions to their family members, are they really acting in the best interest of the public?"

Many have criticized the appointments of Ivanka Trump and Kushner to the White House because they lack any background in government that is typically a prerequisite for such jobs. But even if a public official's family member is a strong fit for the position, the appearance that favoritism is at play can erode trust in governmental institutions.

Even the appearance of corruption or partiality can be damaging for lawmakers and politicians, and that itself raises serious concerns.

"As part of a public official's fiduciary responsibility, there’s a duty to retain trust in the government," said Callaghan.

Eroding public trust can have serious consequences for a democracy — and also for a political party. Most of the president's supporters hope the Russia investigation will just go away, but with his son-in-law now at the center of it all, it may intensify instead. Republicans in Congress have shown little willingness to second guess the president's policy and personnel decisions, but there may come a time when they — or he — see the mixing of family and politics as a major error.

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