Ivanka Holds Up Can of Beans, Sparks Controversy

The Great Bean Brouhaha continues. Last week, Robert Unanue, the CEO of Goya Foods, prompted a boycott of his company after irked Latinos and other critics slammed his endorsement of President Trump, whom he called a "builder" that the US is "truly blessed" to have as its leader. Fox News reports that Trump supporters soon hit back on the boycott, heading out to supermarkers to scoop up cans of Goya products in their own "buycott." On Tuesday night, Ivanka Trump jumped into the fray. "If it's Goya, it has to be good," the first daughter and presidential adviser tweeted from her personal account, showing a photo of herself holding a can of Goya beans. She then echoed the same line, but in Spanish. CBS News notes she put up the same thing to her Facebook and Instagram pages. Now, some say her posts violated a federal ethics law.

Walter Schaub, the ex-head of the Office of Government Ethics, says the tweet violated government code that spells out "an employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office to endorse any product, service, or enterprise." MSNBC correspondent Chris Jansing noted that what Trump did with her tweet would've been "pretty much unimaginable in previous administrations." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, turned Trump's own tweet against her. "Si es Trump, tiene que ser corrupto," the congresswoman posted, which translates to: "If it's Trump, it has to be corrupt." Trump's supporters say she was just making light of the Unanue situation. "Ivanka is proud of this strong, Hispanic-owned business with deep roots in the US and has every right to express her personal support," a White House rep says, per CBS. (More Ivanka Trump stories.)