President Joe Biden’s lawyers have told Vice President Kamala Harris' niece to stop using the likeness of her aunt in her business ventures, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The Biden White House is eager to show that this administration has a higher ethical standard than its predecessor after Democratic Party officials harshly criticized President Donald Trump for using the office of the presidency to boost his family's personal business interests.
"We've been attacking the Trumps for years on all of the gross grifting," a former adviser to Kamala Harris told the Times. "We ought to be much cleaner."
Meena Harris, who is an author and businesswoman, has been using the likeness of her aunt, the vice president, in a book and in her clothing lines, according to Business Insider.
But a White House official told the Times that after the Democrats won the presidential election, the transition team's ethics attorneys told her she was no longer permitted to use her aunt's likeness in her products.
Politico reported that lawyers said she could sell out the products she already had but could not restock them.
"It's the White House's policy that the Vice President's name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities that could reasonably be understood to imply an endorsement or support," vice presidential spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told the Times.
Meena Harris emphasized to the Times that "since the beginning of the campaign, I have insisted on upholding all legal and ethical standards and will continue to strictly adhere to the ethics rules of the Biden/Harris White House."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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