The infighting and jockeying for power among Donald Trump’s inner circle—a product of the “creative tension” he is said to encourage amongst his staff—that defined his presidential bid has certainly followed the real estate mogul to the White House. As Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller—notably the latter—battle a wave of criticism over Trump’s deeply flawed executive order on immigration, and Reince Priebus takes the blame for the hire of Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway is laying the groundwork to emerge the victor in the seemingly inevitable West Wing shake-up.

Less than one week after she came under fire for offering up the non-existent “Bowling Green Massacre” as a justification for Trump’s controversial travel ban, Conway created another ethical dilemma for the White House when she gave Ivanka Trump’s eponymous fashion line a “free commercial” on Fox News. Conway’s shameless plug instantly set off alarms in Washington amongst Trump critics and ethics watchdogs and prompted Spicer to tell an eager press corps that Conway was “counseled.” But a Politico report suggests that Conway’s declaration was not only intentional, but a well-orchestrated play to engender loyalty with President Trump.

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In the aftermath of Trump’s improbable victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump reportedly offered Conway what is now Spicer’s role, but the former G.O.P. pollster turned down the position, viewing herself more in the mold of a Valerie Jarrett than a Josh Earnest. She wanted to be as involved with policy as the expression of it. "I promised the president I would help oversee communications here,” Conway told Politico. “Comms is not press, it’s visionary, it’s the real people impact.”At various times, Conway has touted that she has “walk-in privileges” with the Oval Office’s newest resident. “All you need to know is that I have the ear and confidence of one person,” Conway said. And in Trumpland, where loyalty appears to be the main currency, Conway’s defense of Trump’s condemnation of Nordstrom on Twitter, and her subsequent plug of Ivanka's brand, was purposed to cement her standing in the West Wing, and Politico reports, getting her closer to the coveted—albeit arguably the worst f***ing job in government—role of White House Chief of Staff. “I know who I am to this guy and what he relies on me for,” Conway asserted.

But while Conway may see herself as Trump’s Jarrett, others are not necessarily buying into that narrative. “I would think that Ivanka or Jared would be the closest to having that sort of relationship,” Ebs Burnough, deputy social secretary in the Obama administration, told Politico, adding that the Obama-Jarrett relationship was “a deep tie that can’t be replicated overnight.” And Conway’s unscrupulous advertisement for Ivanka’s brand reportedly upset one person with outsize influence over the president—Ivanka herself. And while Conway has taken control of veterans affairs and opioid abuse in the fledgling administration—two issues Trump has expressed a personal interest in—he has inexplicably tasked brokering a peace deal between Israel and Palestine to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a vote of confidence if there ever was one. “If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” Trump said to Kushner on the eve of his inauguration at the Candlelight Dinner last month. Even Kushner, however, seems aware that his influence over Trump is limited after Kushner spent a day arranging a meeting between his father-in-law and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, only to be thwarted by Trump and his proclivity for trashing his critics on Twitter.

Conway’s posturing, however, does hint at changes coming in the West Wing. Melissa McCarthy’s impersonation of Spicer on S.N.L. reportedly fueled Trump’s dissatisfaction with the former R.N.C. communications director’s performance to date—a selection the president blames on Priebus. After the Associated Press reported that Trump was unhappy that Spicer told the press that Conway was “counseled” after she pitched Ivanka’s clothing line, Conway was quick to tweet Trump “likes ‘counselor’ more than ‘counseled.’” Then there is, of course the separate conflict between Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser Mike Flynn over the latter discussing the election-related sanctions imposed on Moscow with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It's hard to believe that Trump hasn't even been in office for one month yet.