Bob Casey said president should be referred to ethics office for tweet attacking clothing store after it said it would stop carrying Ivanka’s label due to poor sales

Donald Trump should be referred to the federal ethics office for his tweet attacking department store Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s clothing line, a Democratic senator has suggested.

Bob Casey pointed the US Office of Government Ethics towards Trump’s message in a tweet, which read: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!” Trump’s message was later retweeted from the official presidential account, @potus.

Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, also criticized the president. “I think it’s inappropriate, but he’s a totally inappropriate president, so it’s totally in keeping with who he is,” she said.

Trump’s comments came after Nordstrom announced last week that it would stop carrying Ivanka’s label due to poor sales. “We’ve said all along we make buying decisions based on performance,” a statement issued at the time said. “We’ve got thousands of brands – more than 2,000 offered on the site alone. Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of our business.”



But the move followed a weeks-long boycott campaign organised by an anti-Trump activist group called Grab Your Wallet, which demanded Nordstrom sever its business ties with the Trump family. Three days prior to dropping Ivanka’s brand, Nordstrom also issued an internal statement in support of immigrants following the president’s executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. It has maintained that the two were not connected.

After Trump’s tweet, the department store chain’s shares dropped but later bounced back. Trump’s tweets have in the past also been correlated with changing share prices in US automakers, Boeing and Carrier.

Asked about the tweet at his daily press briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said of the president: “He has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success ... For someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is just – is not acceptable, and the president has every right as a father to stand up for them.”



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On Wednesday, Nordstrom reiterated its earlier comments, with a spokesperson saying: “Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.” The spokesman added that Ivanka Trump was “personally informed of our decision in early January”.

Critics have accused Trump of misusing his office to benefit his family’s business empire.

“This is misuse of public office for private gains,” said Richard Painter, who served as George W Bush’s chief ethics lawyer. “And it is abuse of power because the official message is clear – Nordstrom is persona non grata with the administration.”

Trump has refused to sell off his many businesses despite demands from critics that he do so to avoid multiple conflicts of interest.

He said on 11 January he would maintain ownership of his global business empire but hand control to his two oldest sons Donald Jr and Eric, along with Trump Organization chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, during his presidency.

Trump’s web of international companies remains opaque since he has refused to release his tax returns, which experts have said would provide a clearer view of his business interests.

Ethics experts have said Trump’s arrangement does little to address potential conflicts because he would still know which assets he owned, such as Trump-branded golf courses and hotels, and his family would continue to profit from them.

“President Trump said he is going to have nothing to do with his family businesses,” said Robert Weissman, president of liberal watchdog group Public Citizen. “His reaction to developments with his daughter’s business line suggests that claim is untrue.”

Ivanka Trump ran a clothing and jewelry business bearing her name, in addition to other work for the Trump Organization, before saying she would resign when her father was sworn in as president. A spokeswoman for the Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment.

Painter said Nordstrom could have cause for legal action if the Trump administration takes any adverse action against it. A group including former White House ethics attorneys filed a lawsuit after Trump took office accusing him of allowing his businesses to accept payments from foreign governments, in violation of the US constitution.

The Nordstrom controversy comes as Melania Trump faces criticism that she is trying to profit financially from her high-profile position.

This week, Melania Trump refiled a $150m (£120m) lawsuit against the corporation that publishes the Daily Mail’s website for reporting rumours that she worked as a high-end escort in the 1990s. The filing argued that the article had hurt her chances of establishing “multimillion-dollar business relationships” during the years in which she would be “one of the most photographed women in the world”.

Norman Eisen, Obama’s chief ethics counsellor, told Associated Press: “The Trumps are using the White House like the Kardashians used reality TV, to build and vastly expand their overall business enterprises.”

Trump’s tweet left fellow Republicans in an uncomfortable position.



Republican senator David Perdue of Georgia said: “That sounds like a personal matter to me.” Perdue added: “He is a citizen and he is a citizen who is now president of the United States.”

Reuters contributed to this report