JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP FAMILY: “The Justice Department has released a trove of decades-old internal legal memos concluding the President should be legally barred from appointing a relative to a position in the White House, shedding new light on just how sharp a departure the department’s more recent interpretation of federal law under the Trump administration compares to past practice.
When the Justice Department concluded on Inauguration Day 2017 Jared Kushner could serve in his father-in-law’s administration without violating anti-nepotism laws, legal experts scratched their heads at the ruling.
Monday’s newly released memos — first reported by Politico, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request — illustrate why the reversal was so stark.
Dating back to the Nixon administration, the Justice Department provided an unbroken chain of advice: federal law forbids the President from appointing a relative ‘to a civilian position in the agency … over which (the official) exercises jurisdiction or control,’ including a temporary or permanent appointment to the White House staff…
Yet deputy assistant attorney general Daniel Koffsky, a longtime career attorney at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, reversed course in January, finding the anti-nepotism law covers only appointments in an ‘executive’ agency and that the White House Office is not such an agency under the law.”
-Laura Jarrett, “DOJ releases slew of memos lobbying against presidential appointments for family,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Oct. 3, 2017 09:43pm