How Ivanka Trump’s previous scandals could ruin her chances of running for president

Rumours that Ivanka Trump plans to run for president refuse to die. But a string of “questionable” dealings could come back to bite her.

If persistent rumours are to be believed, we could one day see President Ivanka installed in the White House.

Speculation has been mounting that former first daughter Ivanka Trump has been harbouring political ambitions of her own, with pundits claiming the 39-year-old could be planning to launch her own political career within months.

Many are convinced she aims to challenge Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio in 2022 – although that path now seems to have been ruled out – or run for Florida governor.

Others suggest she could serve as Donald Trump’s vice president if he were to run in 2024 and win, while some suggest she could even run for president herself next time around.

But US political commentator and author Spencer Critchley told news.com.au any of those options would be a huge challenge for the mother-of-three, as her family’s past was fast catching up with them.

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Donald and Ivanka Trump, pictured the night before election day 2020. Picture: Ivanka Trump/Twitter

Mr Critchley, a former communications consultant for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and the author of Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable And What Happens Next, said Ivanka’s recent behaviour indicated she was seriously considering a political move.

He said some clues regarding her political ambitions include her adoption of “ostentatiously virtuous positions on non-controversial topics like motherhood or being kind to each other”, ensuring she remains in the public eye, being “very carefully groomed and presented” in public and attending official state events during the Trump administration, such as the G20 summit in Japan in 2019.

But he said attention was now turning to a string of “questionable” actions undertaken by Ivanka before and during her time as adviser to the president, which could impact her future career path.

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Ivanka Trump attendance at international events like the G20 summit in Japan 2019 is a clue she might be planning a political career of her own. Picture: Adam Taylor

“It seems clear with the hints she’s dropped over the years that she thinks (running for office) is the logical next step,” he told news.com.au.

“But Ivanka is obviously completely unqualified in terms of her experience but also in terms of her character – in many ways she’s similar to her father and she has certainly had some very shady dealings.

“Ivanka, from the beginning and even before the Trump administration, had been involved in very questionable stuff.”

One example was the fact that Donald Trump intervened when it came to granting Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner security clearances following FBI background checks, against the advice of intelligence officials and White House staff.

The matter became a massive scandal for the Trump administration when the story broke in early 2019, with New York Magazine reporting Kushner’s clearance was denied due to his “family real estate business and its ties to foreign governments, along with his repeated misstatements to the FBI about foreign contacts”.

Mr Critchley claimed the couple were initially denied the clearance as they were “deemed to be too vulnerable to blackmail”, and that the security debacle alone raised serious questions.

Secondly, he pointed out that while Jared and Ivanka vowed to “sever ties to outside businesses and income” during their time in the White House, it has since been revealed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that the couple made “between $172 and $640 million in joint income during their entire time in the administration”.

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Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made tens of millions during the Trump administration. Picture: Instagram

The ethics watchdog previously revealed they had disclosed earning between $US23,791,645 and $US120,676,949 in combined outside income in their final financial disclosure reports, with those figures made over the course of 2020 and up to January 20, 2021 alone.

“Some of that came from the Trump International Hotel which was an obvious influence peddling machine with foreign executives and lobbyists staying there to curry favour with the president,” Mr Critchley said.

“Something like that is normal in other countries but is absolutely unconscionable in the US which has very strong anti-corruption legislation, when it’s enforced.”

Mr Critchley also pointed out that during her time in the White House, Ivanka won a string of trademarks for her business in Russia, China and Japan.

In fact, in May 2018 it was revealed that the Chinese government had approved Ms Trump’s brand’s 13th trademark in just three months – something Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Whimn raised “significant questions about corruption”.

“It’s very hard to imagine how that could have happened without her being the president’s daughter,” Mr Critchley said.

He added that Ivanka and her brother Donald Trump Jr had also narrowly avoided prosecution for alleged fraud well before their father’s presidency.

According to ProPublica, in 2010 prosecutors began building a case against the siblings, who were accused of misleading potential buyers of the Trump SoHo hotel development which was failing to sell. The case was ultimately dropped.

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Donald Trump Jr (left) and Ivanka Trump, pictured with Eric and Tiffany Trump, narrowly avoided prosecution for fraud. Picture: Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

And in 2017, an expose by The New Yorker revealed Ivanka had overseen the construction of the Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku in Azerbaijan, with reporter Adam Davidson claiming the building’s construction might have been used to launder money for members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which would be a breach of America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

“The entire Baku deal is a giant red flag,” an assistant dean at George Washington University Law School told the publication, adding: “Corruption warning signs are rarely more obvious.”

“These examples show the reality of Ivanka Trump – that she is unqualified and every bit as questionable as you would expect a Trump child to be,” Mr Critchley said.

Mr Critchley said there was a “very real possibility” Donald Trump would be too busy facing his own legal battles to run for president in 2024, despite his claims to the contrary – and that instead of running for office, the “only thing Ivanka should be working on is absolution”.