Ivanka Pivots to Bean Influencer

Looks like she found something new—and may have violated federal ethics rules in the process.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Hours after encouraging the country’s unemployed millions to “find something new,” Ivanka Trump appears to have taken her own advice, adding the unlikely credit of all-powerful bean influencer to her already chaotic resume.

The image is an apparent response to calls to boycott Goya after its CEO on Friday claimed that the country was “truly blessed” to have Donald Trump as their leader. The surprising bit of praise angered many in the Latino community, a core fixture of Goya’s market.

But in elegantly posing with a can of beans, Ivanka appears to have broken a government ethics rule prohibiting executive branch employees from using their office for “own private gain, for the endorsement of any product.” “Ms. Trump’s Goya tweet is clearly a violation of the government’s misuse of position regulation,” Walter Shaub, former director for the Office of Government Ethics, said in a series of tweets. “She knows better. But she did it anyway because no one in this administration cares about government ethics.”

The potential violation comes as the latest in a string of similar accusations of Ivanka breaking federal rules since arriving at the White House. It’s proof that as her new project claims, you really can use the familiar to leverage up in these tough times.

Amid mounting criticism of Ivanka’s photo, her father on Wednesday posed with not one but five Goya products inside the Oval Office, cementing the Trump family’s status as bean influencers for these cursed times.

This post has been updated to include dad’s beans.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate