Governance norms · nepotism
Family members in formal government roles, by president
Immediate relatives and in-laws of the president holding a formal, titled federal position, a White House advisor, an agency appointment, or an official envoy, during his own administration. This is a governance-norms question about official positions, not about family business conflicts, which the site measures separately. It excludes private advice, campaign roles, and the traditional duties of a First Spouse.
Who held which role
| President | Relative | Formal role | Paid? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinton | Hillary Clinton (spouse) | Chair, health-care-reform task force (1993) | Unpaid |
| Trump I | Ivanka Trump (daughter) | Advisor to the President (2017–21) | Unpaid |
| Trump I | Jared Kushner (son-in-law) | Senior Advisor to the President (2017–21) | Unpaid |
| Trump II* | Jared Kushner (son-in-law) | U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Missions (formalized Feb 2026) | Not disclosed |
| Trump II* | Charles Kushner (in-law) | Ambassador to France and Monaco (confirmed May 2025) | Salaried post |
| Trump II* | Massad Boulos (in-law) | Senior Advisor, Middle East affairs and (State Dept.) Africa | Not disclosed |
Bush, Obama, and Biden placed no relatives in formal roles (First Lady initiatives such as Let's Move or Joining Forces are not appointments and are excluded). The two Trump II in-laws stand in the same relation to the president, each the father of a son-in-law (Charles Kushner of Ivanka Trump's husband, Massad Boulos of Tiffany Trump's), so both are counted. One Trump II borderline case is left out of the count: Kimberly Guilfoyle, confirmed as Ambassador to Greece in 2025 (she resigned in October 2026), is Donald Trump Jr.'s former fiancee, not a legal relative; counting her would put Trump II at 4.
The law, and its loophole
The reference case is 1961, when President Kennedy named his brother Robert F. Kennedy as Attorney General, the most prominent modern nepotism appointment. It helped prompt the 1967 anti-nepotism law (5 U.S.C. §3110), which bars a public official, the President included, from appointing a relative to an agency he controls; the statute names “daughter” and “son-in-law” explicitly. But in January 2017 the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel held that a separate statute lets the President staff the White House Office “without regard to any other provision of law,” which it read as exempting White House positions from the anti-nepotism bar. That opinion is what cleared Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's White House appointments, and it is why this norm now turns on an interpretation, not a clear prohibition.