The following article by Max Greenwood was posted on the Hill website October 3, 2017:
The memos, issued to White Houses run by former Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Obama, were overruled in January by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daniel Koffsky, a longtime Justice Department lawyer.
That decision paved the way for President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to become a senior adviser at the White House.
The president’s elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, eventually became a senior adviser as well, albeit in an unpaid capacity.
The legal memos concluding that the president cannot appoint relatives to his White House staff or advisory commissions were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Politico, which posted them online.
According to the documents, Justice Department lawyers had held for decades that a 1967 anti-nepotism law barred the president from appointing family members to White House positions.
For example, a 2009 opinion issued to the Obama White House forbade the president from appointing his half-sister to a White House fellowships commission and his brother-in-law to a fitness commission.
The legal memos were overruled in January of this year. Koffsky concluded that a 1978 law gave the president broad authority to hire for White House positions.
View the post here.