Matea Gold

The White House Counsel's Office has concluded that senior adviser Kellyanne Conway acted “inadvertently” when she endorsed Ivanka Trump's clothing line, rebuffing a recommendation by the top federal ethics official that she be disciplined for an apparent violation of federal rules. Stefan C. Passantino, who handles White House ethics issues as deputy counsel to President Trump, wrote in a letter that his office concluded Conway was speaking in a “light, offhand manner” when she touted the Ivanka Trump line during a Feb. 9 appearance on “Fox & Friends.” At the time, she was addressing efforts by activists to persuade retailers such as Nordstrom to drop Ivanka Trump-branded items. “We concluded that Ms. Conway acted inadvertently and is highly unlikely to do so again,” Passantino wrote to Walter M. Schaub, Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, adding that Conway made the comments “without nefarious motive or intent to benefit personally.”

Passantino said he met with Conway and advised her that her remarks “implicated the prohibition on using one's official position to endorse any product or service.” “Ms. Conway has acknowledged her understanding of the Standards and has reiterated her commitment to abiding by them in the future,” he added.

Ann Ravel, one of the three Democratic appointees on the deeply divided Federal Election Commission, announced that she will leave her post March 1, setting up one of the first tests of how President Trump will approach campaign finance regulation. The opening at the FEC provides Trump with an opportunity to demonstrate the tack he plans to take toward the growing reach of the wealthy in politics. There was a surge of massive donations by the super-rich in the 2016 presidential race, with just 10 mega-donor individuals and couples contributing nearly 20 percent of the $1.1 billion raised by super PACs by the end of August, according to a Washington Post analysis. Trump made denouncing big donors a centerpiece of his presidential bid, lambasting the role of super PACs and promising to “drain the swamp.”

The Federal Election Commission gave a green light to donating bitcoins to political committees, one of the first rulings by a government agency on how to treat the virtual currency.

In a 6-to-0 vote, the panel said that a PAC can accept bitcoin donations, as well as purchase them, but it must sell its bitcoins and convert them into US dollars before they are deposited into an official campaign account. The commission did not approve the use of bitcoin to acquire goods and services.

After the vote, however, individual commissioners offered sharply divergent views on whether their decision limits bitcoin donations to small amounts -- creating more uncertainty about how much of the Internet currency that political committees can accept. Because the commission only approved the acceptance of bitcoin as specifically described in the request by the Make Your Laws PAC, the decision does not permit contributions of more than $100, she said.