The backtracking on the Opening Day fund-raiser had strong echoes of Ms. Trump’s calling off her own fund-raising effort: an online auction that offered the winning bidder the opportunity to have coffee with her, to benefit the Eric Trump Foundation and a hospital it supports. That auction attracted a number of businessmen who said in interviews with The New York Times that their goal was to pass a message to her father on policy issues like immigration, or to gather information that might affect investments. The auction was canceled on Friday.
“Families can be complicated, and big families are even more complicated,” said C. Boyden Gray, who served as White House counsel during the administration of the elder George Bush, the last president to have adult children when he entered the White House. “And the Bush families and the Trump families are both big families. So a little extra care is warranted.”…
Mr. Trump ran for president on a promise to “drain the swamp” of special interests in Washington, and on harsh criticism of the Clinton family for the operations of its foundation while Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of state.
The actions of Mr. Trump’s children — their involvement in transition business while they also use their status to raise money — threaten to undermine all of that, and several of Mr. Trump’s own advisers privately expressed concern this week about distractions involving his family.
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