As a senior White House advisor, Ivanka Trump has made fighting forced human labor and sex trafficking one of her signature initiatives.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post in November, President Trump’s daughter called human trafficking, whose victims reportedly number 25 million children and adults worldwide, an “evil.”

Ivanka Trump also wrote that all governments have “a moral obligation” to stop these “heinous crimes.” She touted the “strong action” taken by President Trump to combat human trafficking and explained how he was bringing “the full force” of the U.S. government to this issue. She said her father did so by signing an executive order directing federal law enforcement “to prioritize dismantling the criminal organizations behind forced labor, sex trafficking and involuntary servitude.”

Fast forward to Friday when Ivanka Trump’s claims that the Trump administration cares about human trafficking faced scrutiny.

That’s because authorities in Florida announced that one of President Trump’s longtime friends, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, had been charged in a sprawling human-trafficking and prostitution investigation.

Police said the billionaire Kraft, 77, was charged with two counts of soliciting another to commit prostitution, stemming from two separate visits to the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida, the Daily Beast reported. Authorities said a video obtained as evidence showed the Patriots owner in a sex act at the spa.

While the solicitation charges themselves are misdemeanors and Kraft was among two dozen male customers implicated in the probe, the Daily Beast and other outlets said the charges are part of a larger crackdown on five massage parlors in two counties in Florida where women were used for suspected human trafficking and prostitution.

Sheriff William Snyder in Martin County, Florida, where one of the day spas is located, said at a press conference Friday that the women were victims, coming to the United States from China under the guise of having legitimate jobs in the day spas, the Palm Beach Post reported. The women instead were expected to perform sex acts on men who visited the storefront spas, and were confined to the businesses, eating and sleeping there when they were not working.

Multiple men who visited the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Palm Beach County told police they paid the spa’s manager, Lei Wang, to have women perform sex acts on them, the Palm Beach Post reported. Wang and the spa’s owner, Hua Zhang, have both been arrested in connection with the case.

Under state and federal law, human trafficking is defined as “soliciting, recruiting, harboring, transporting or otherwise obtaining another person to exploit him or her for labor, domestic servitude or sexual exploitation,” the Palm Beach Post said.

Kraft, whose Tom Brady-led Patriots won their sixth Super Bowl three weeks ago, pushed back against the solicitation allegations in a statement released by a spokesman, Politico reported.

“We categorically deny that Mr. Kraft engaged in any illegal activity,” the statement read. “Because it is a judicial matter, we will not be commenting further.”

But the charges against Kraft already were making things awkward for Ivanka Trump and her father Friday. Across social media and cable news, people questioned Ivanka Trump and the president’s commitment to fight human trafficking.

That’s in part because the president has been accused of sexual misconduct himself and has previously rallied to support political allies accused of sexual assault or harassment, including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore.

This week, the president also found his administration embroiled in the ongoing controversy involving Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who is a Palm Beach, Florida, neighbor of the president.

Epstein faced accusations in 2008 of sexually abusing more than 30 underaged girls. But a judge found this week that he benefited from a non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors that allowed him to plead guilty to a much less serious charge related to prostitution. The deal, which was concealed from the victims, was facilitated by then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who is now Trump’s secretary of labor.

A judge ruled Thursday that federal prosecutors — among them, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta — broke federal law when they signed a plea agreement with Jeffrey Epstein https://t.co/qyE4OYCVJb #PerversionofJustice — Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) February 21, 2019

With regard to Kraft, President Trump on Friday only expressed sadness to hear that his friend had been charged in connection with the Florida prostitution case. The president also left open the possibility that he would be willing to defend his friend’s claims of innocence.

“It’s very sad. I was very surprised to see it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “He’s proclaimed his innocence totally, but I’m very surprised to see it.”

Trump also shrugged off the judge’s ruling that Acosta broke the law by arranging the Epstein deal, saying, “I really don’t know too much about it. I know he’s done a great job as labor secretary, and that seems like a long time ago.”

Ivanka Trump on Friday didn’t address the allegations against Kraft or the judge’s ruling on Acosta. Her only tweet Friday pertained to another of her signature issues, workforce development.

Kraft’s arrest puts his friendship with Donald Trump and his family under scrutiny. The Palm Beach Daily News reported that the men’s friendship goes back at least 20 years. Both men have long maintained second homes in Palm Beach and first met while carrying out “philanthropic work together in Palm Beach.”

Kraft was a guest at Trump’s lavish wedding reception with Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2005, and the two men forged a “stronger friendship” after Myra Kraft, Robert Kraft’s wife of nearly 50 years, died of cancer in 2011, the Palm Beach Daily News said.

“When Myra died, Melania and Donald came up to the funeral in our synagogue, then they came for memorial week to visit with me,” Kraft said in an interview. “Then he called me once a week for the whole year, the most depressing year of my life when I was down and out. He called me every week to see how I was doing, invited me to things, tried to lift my spirits. He was one of five or six people that were like that. I remember that.”

Trump’s concern for his grieving friend may explain why Kraft, reportedly a Democrat, supported Trump’s presidential run by donating $1 million, according to reports.

Kraft also was a guest at a pre-inauguration dinner for Trump and attended a dinner the president hosted at his Mar-a-Lago resort for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife in February 2017.