Kellyann Conway, Trump’s legal counselor, commited a serious crime by promoting Ivanka Trump’s products on national television this week. Her product commercial took place during her prime-time appearance on Fox and Friends, but the clip went viral as many Americans watched with disbelief as a federal spokesman seriously, shamelessly promote Ivanka Trump’s clothing brand.
Conway’s call to “buy Ivanka’s stuff” goes against U.S. Code 2635.702, and yet Conway has received little to no punishment. Now average citizens are calling, texting, tweeting and otherwise engaging the Office of Government Ethics, swamping them with so many complaints and so much rage that their website actually crashed.
The number of site visitors caused OGE.com to crash and the volume of calls even put their phone systems offline. The official OGE twitter account posted a tweet informing callers and e-mailers that their office does not “have investigative or enforcement authority.” The agency does work to prevent ethics violations, but once the violation has been made it seems the Office of Government Ethics has limited options.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an ethics watchdog group, has called for an investigation, while Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, has requested that Conway receive “disciplinary action.” So far the only crash has been the website. Conway still has her job.