WTF? Ivanka Trump sat in on her daddy's first meeting with a foreign dignitary

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Friday November 18, 2016 · 12:13 PM PST

2016/11/18 · 12:13

Surprised no one’s mentioned this yet, but there’s yet more evidence that Donald Trump’s promise to drain the swamp is nothing more than a giant swindle. Yesterday afternoon, Trump held his first meeting with one of his future counterparts—Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

While the meeting supposedly went well, one of the guests at that meeting caused eyebrows to hike into hairlines—Ivanka Trump. As in Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.

One has to wonder if Trump knew bloody well what he was doing, because his transition team didn’t allow any media into the meeting—not even the press pool. We only found out about this via handout pictures distributed by the Japanese government.

Ivanka Trump sat in on her father's meeting today with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, per handout photo pic.twitter.com/tEbfYYeJFA
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) November 18, 2016

This is wrong on so many levels. For one thing, Ivanka is slated to join her siblings in running their father’s real estate empire as part of a blind trust that isn’t really blind. Combined with the Trump kids’ role in the transition, it raises more questions about whether Trump will really distance himself from the Trump Organization once he takes office. Indeed, ThinkProgress’ Judd Legum thinks Ivanka’s presence was a subtle warning to Abe and the rest of the world—if you don’t treat the Trump Organization fairly, you will have the president of the United States to reckon with. In other words—this has, at the very least, the appearance of pay to play.

For another thing, Ivanka has no intention of seeking a security clearance. And yet, she was in a meeting with one of her dad’s future opposite numbers?

Additionally, Trump should have had a foreign service expert on Japan at that meeting, not Ivanka. But apparently he hasn’t even talked with anyone at the State Department yet.

Trump doesn’t want to drain the swamp. He’s going to overflow it.

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WTF? Ivanka Trump sat in on her daddy's first meeting with a foreign dignitary

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