The appearance of the president’s daughter-in-law may be a surprise to even those watching closely

It’s often said that no one who finds their way into Donald Trump’s orbit manages to escape entirely clean. But Lara Trump, wife of the president’s son Eric, has largely managed to buck that trend over the past couple of years.

Omarosa releases new tape of Trump campaign's 'hush money' offer Read more

Until this week, that is, when Omarosa Manigault Newman, the controversial former White House staffer and reality star, released the latest in her series of surreptitiously recorded conversations with members of the Trump circle.

In the conversation, held shortly after Manigault Newman was fired late last year, the president’s daughter-in-law and top campaign staffer can be heard offering Manigault Newman a job with the Trump 2020 campaign, with the heavily implied stipulation that she would be prohibited from speaking negatively about her time in the White House or the administration going forward. It’s an offer that Manigault Newman characterized as “hush money” in an interview with MSNBC.

Play Video 1:01 Audio recording of conversation between Omarosa Manigault Newman and Lara Trump – video

“It sounds a little like, obviously, that there are some things you’ve got in the back pocket to pull out,” Lara Trump says on the recording, in what turned out to be an understatement. “Clearly, if you come on board the campaign, like, we can’t have, we got to … Everything, everybody positive, right?”

However, the appearance of Lara Trump may come as a surprise to even those who have been watching closely. Until this week, the 35-year-old former Inside Edition television producer, who married Eric Trump in 2014 (at Mar-a-Lago, of course), and gave birth to their first child last year, has maintained a largely unblemished public persona, at least on the typical curve for the extended Trump universe.

She’s certainly known to toe the party line when it comes to matters political, but unlike Donald Trump Jr, she’s managed to work for the campaign without adopting an attack dog persona, and has largely avoided wading into the sort of half-measures that have plagued Ivanka Trump’s public image whenever she has weighed in on matters of political or cultural discourse. Even allegations about impropriety with her husband’s handling of his charitable foundation left her largely unscathed.

Lara Trump has also expressed a distaste for things that are “too ornate and fancy”, a sharp departure from the gaudy trappings of the family brand.

Good morning 🌞💪🏽🔥 cc: @teammaloney A post shared by Lara Trump (@laraleatrump) on Aug 15, 2018 at 5:59am PDT

Writing on her social media presence earlier this summer, Slate noted that her Instagram feed is “an achievement in blandness” highlighting her “commitment to her kid, her dogs and her father-in-law without ever betraying a hint of personality”.

Even in her more traditionally Trumpian endeavors, like hosting a “news program” of sorts on the president’s Facebook page, her command of company jargon is rarely delivered with the sort of acidic tone common among the rest of her extended family. In one from August last year, she makes mention of “fake news”, but then proceeds to catalogue a series of achievements by the president in a manner more enthusiastic than combative.

That may change. The North Carolina native, an equestrian and triathlon athlete, who has said she and her family sometime “pine for the old days”, has had to tap deeper into her competitive side with the emergence of the Manigault Newman affair.

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Lara Trump has framed the recordings as the betrayal of a woman she considered a friend, someone she was trying to do a favor for.

“Woman to woman, I shared a connection with Omarosa as a friend and a campaign sister, and I am absolutely shocked and saddened by her betrayal and violation on a deeply personal level,” she said in a statement.

For years, Lara Trump has remained, if not exactly “the good Trump”, at least far from the worst one. Perhaps the best thing that could have been said about her up until now is that most people probably didn’t know who she was. They probably will now.