The State Department Says “No” to Acting as Ivanka’s Supporting Staff in India

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson apparently is sick of the Trump monarchy that is the current White House, and he’s engaging in a little bit of passive-aggressive protest.

Princess Ivanka is jetting off to India to attend the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Summit. This year’s summit will focus on women’s entrepreneurship – Ivanka’s pet project – and she was invited by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June.

In the past, administration officials as high up as Secretary of State John Kerry or even President Obama have attended the summit. This year, however, the State Department won’t be sending any senior officials.

The reason being, Secretary Tillerson doesn’t want to make Ivanka seem like a more important part of the administration than she is, as a supposed “unpaid” adviser.

From the Washington Examiner:

“They [Tillerson and his staff] won’t send someone senior because they don’t want to bolster Ivanka. It’s now another rift between the White House and State at a time when Rex Tillerson doesn’t need any more problems with the president,” one high-level official told CNN.

So Ivanka won’t be surrounded by high level administration officials, as if they are her entourage.

In fact, no one higher up the food chain than the deputy assistant secretary will be appearing this year.

“Rex doesn’t like the fact that he’s supposed to be our nation’s top diplomat, and Jared and now Ivanka have stepped all over Rex Tillerson for a long time,” another source, this time one close to the White House, added.

The cover being used by the State Department is that the summit, an Obama-era initiative that began in 2010, is going on just as they are working out the details for slashing the department’s operating budget.

You know… totally not an attempt to downplay the involvement of Ivanka Trump in official administration business, or to make it appear that the State Department is the hired help.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told CNN the agency was committed to nurturing women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship.

Another spokesperson said U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza, USAID Administrator Mark Green and Neomi Rao, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and Kenneth Juster, U.S. Ambassador to India, would be joining the delegation.

So, basically the second-string.

The summit will be held from November 28 to November 30, in Hyderabad, India.

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