Originally Posted by
Segnosaur
[i]
Well, she was an employee... It is not normal for someone to both draw a salary AND get paid as a consultant, since whatever was done under the guise of being a consultant could probably be done under the person's regular work as an employee.
Caveat from the get-go: I don't have any deep knowledge of how Trump Org. is structured, and what follows is complete and utter speculation, intended as a discussion point for a plausible scenario in which a consulting fee could reasonably be paid. I have absolutely zero solid information for this, it is 100% speculation and nothing else.
If Trump Org. is a holding company, it might be okay for Ivanka to be paid as a consultant for work done with one of the subsidiaries, if she were not an employee of that subsidiary specifically.
One of my prior employer was a holding company, and had several subsidiaries of diverse natures. Some of them were customers of another.
For example, one was a reinsurance company, another was a health insurance company, and the reinsurance company sold services to the health insurance company. Similarly, one subsidiary was a brokerage company that sold policies for many insurers, including competitors of the company that was a sibling under the holding company.
There were times where we had to get a bit creative trying to do work between subsidiaries that included competition or potential conflicts of interest. I don't recall specifics, but I could see an argument where an employee of the holding company (or one of the subsidiaries) did work for a different subsidiary on a consulting basis, in order to retain some separation of duties.
Like I said, this is speculative, so grain of salt and all that.