President-elect Donald Trump — who this week endorsed Maine clothier L.L. Bean — could be in trouble if he were to do so as commander-in-chief, thanks to President Barack Obama.
The Office of Government Ethics prohibits executive officials from "using their position to endorse an organization, product or person," Politico reports. And while office's rule didn't originally apply to the sitting president, Obama created a White House policy for it to do so.
Trump's praise of L.L. Bean came Thursday morning when he thanked its heiress Linda Bean for supporting his campaign.
Bean was called on the carpet by the feds for illegally donating an excessive amount to a political action committee supporting Trump — a move that has anti-Trump forces calling for a boycott of her company.
That spurred Trump to tweet:
Norm Eisen, Obama's former ethics czar, told Politico: "We strictly forbade this when I was in the White House for the President and everyone else. How can you ask others to follow it if he doesn't?"
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