The White House is defending President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump, saying she had “every right” to post a photo of herself on social media smiling while holding a can of Goya black beans.
The image sparked an immediate public backlash, with lawmakers, legal scholars and social media commentators accusing the president’s daughter of making an illegal endorsement.
“If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” a caption reads in English and Spanish, accompanying the photo of Ivanka.
The controversy first emerged a week ago when Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue praised President Trump at a White House event to honor Hispanic Americans, which prompted widespread calls to boycott the company.
Ivanka posted the image of herself Tuesday night, and in doing so may have violated federal ethics rules that ban federal officials from using their position to endorse consumer products or enterprises, according to government watchdogs.
“There’s a particularly unseemly aspect to this violation: It creates the appearance that the government’s endorsement is for sale,” said Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017, according to reports. “Endorse the president and the administration will endorse your product.”
By Wednesday morning, President Trump, who is also seeking to improve his standing with Latino voters ahead of the election, fanned the controversy more with his own social media posts.
“@GoyaFoods is doing GREAT,” he wrote on Twitter. “The Radical Left smear machine backfired, people are buying like crazy!”
The president next posted to Instagram an image of himself in the Oval Office, grinning and giving two thumbs up with Goya products sitting on the Resolute desk.
As public outrage continues to flare over the matter, the White House blamed the media and the wider cultural shift on race being witnessed around the country that have led to boycotts of certain figures.
“Only the media and the cancel culture movement would criticize Ivanka for showing her personal support for a company that has been unfairly mocked, boycotted and ridiculed for supporting this administration -- one that has consistently fought for and delivered for the Hispanic community,” said White House spokeswoman Carolina Hurley. “Ivanka is proud of this strong, Hispanic-owned business with deep roots in the U.S. and has every right to express her personal support.”
Reactions on social media were severe.
On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York retweeted Ivanka’s image, declaring in Spanish “Si es Trump, tiene que ser corrupto,” which means “If it’s Trump, it has to be corrupt.”
Comedian Chelsea Handler posted a photo of herself next to the image of Ivanka, but she was holding a can of Rosarita brand black beans.
“If you want your beans without a side of racism, try other brands. I am,” she wrote.
Nearly all the late-night talking heads also went in on the matter Wednesday night, with Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert offering their own punchlines.
Legal experts call personal product promotion by executive branch officials a clear violation of Title 5, Section 2635.702, of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.
Craig Holman, a Capitol Hill lobbyist for Public Citizen, told Yahoo News the president and his daughter “decided to violate federal law thinking that it will benefit them politically.”
Guidelines on endorsements from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics state: “Executive branch employees may not use their government positions to suggest that the agency or any part of the executive branch endorses an organization, product, service, or person.”
AP
AP
If there were any ethics violations, the White House would be solely responsible for disciplining Ivanka, but that outcome is highly unlikely, chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters Wednesday in Atlanta.
“I don’t know from my standpoint I see this as a huge promotion of Goya Foods as much as it is expressing appreciation for someone who is willing to show great political courage,” he said.
But Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) disagreed with that assessment.
“The ethics rules for executive branch employees say that you can’t use your official position to promote a private business,” said CREW executive director Noah Bookbinder, who spoke to Yahoo News. “It’s pretty clear that the context in which this came out is that Goya had been supportive of the Trump administration and the Trump administration was being supportive of Goya.”
A similar case from 2017 involved White House advocate Kellyanne Conway, who during a nationally televised interview encouraged Trump supporters to buy Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories after Nordstrom dropped the fashion line. The White House later announced that Conway had been “counseled” about the issue, without providing further details.
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