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.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

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