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How Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin blocked Ivanka Trump’s appointment to the World Bank

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4 years ago

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  • Steven Mnuchin intervened to block Ivanka Trump from helming the World Bank, The Intercept reported.

  • A source told the news outlet that the pick “came incredibly close to happening.”

  • President Donald Trump was a staunch advocate of his daughter’s ascension to the top role.

President Donald Trump sought to name his daughter Ivanka to lead the World Bank in 2019, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin intervened to block the appointment, The Intercept reported Sunday.

In January 2019, the physician and anthropologist Jim Yong Kim, who had led the World Bank since 2012, announced he would be stepping down from his role the following month, creating a frenzy to fill the coveted position.

Kim’s surprise departure presented Trump as president with the ability to reshape the leadership of the World Bank, as the international financial organization has traditionally been led by an American citizen.

As the White House assembled a list of candidates, Ivanka Trump emerged as a favorite to her father, who told The Atlantic that she would have been an excellent choice because “she’s very good with numbers.”

But in April 2019, the younger Trump told the Associated Press she passed on the opportunity to lead the World Bank, saying she was “happy with the work” she was doing as a senior advisor to the president.

While she didn’t assume the role, she did help Mnuchin and Mick Mulvaney, then the White House chief of staff, in selecting Kim’s eventual successor, David Malpass, who at the time of his appointment was the under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs.

But according to two sources who spoke with The Intercept, the discussion surrounding Ivanka Trump’s possible ascent to the top of the World Bank was not simply from the Washington, DC, rumor mill.

The elder Trump apparently wanted his daughter in the role, with Mnuchin said to have stepped in to prevent the selection.

“It came incredibly close to happening,” a source told The Intercept.

When contacted by The Intercept, representatives for Mnuchin and Ivanka Trump did not respond for comment. Queries from the news outlet to the World Bank and the Trump Organization also yielded no response.

The World Bank, which was created in 1944, seeks to promote economic development and reduce poverty by “providing technical and financial support to help countries reform certain sectors or implement specific projects” in areas including education and healthcare.

Before her time in the White House, Ivanka Trump was an executive vice president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization. She also had her own fashion line, which included clothes, shoes, and accessories.

After her father assumed the presidency, she helped start the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, which was supported by the World Bank and was created to generate funding for female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

In January 2019, a White House representative, Jessica Ditto, pointed to Ivanka Trump’s work with the initiative to justify her possible elevation to the World Bank.

“She’s worked closely with the World Bank’s leadership for the past two years,” Ditto said at the time.

She still lacked the depth of financial experience that previous leaders brought to the role, however.

“That’s a very thin base to try to establish credibility in this multilateral institution,” Scott Morris, the director of the US development-policy program at the Center for Global Development, told The Intercept. “It’s hard to imagine that she would have been viewed as a credible leader. It would be the worst kind of exercise of US power.”

He added: “I have to think as a candidate she would have encountered some resistance. But maybe [the bank’s members] would not have wanted to provoke the US president.”

Morris told The Intercept that the near-appointment could raise concerns about the continued US role in unilaterally appointing the World Bank’s leadership.

“A growing number of countries don’t like this whole arrangement,” he said. “For them to hear how close it was to being the US president’s daughter probably adds fuel to the fire that the Americans are so cavalier about this.”

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Bizarre Epstein files reference to Trump, Putin, and oral sex with ‘Bubba’ draws scrutiny in Congress

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November 14, 2025

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The latest tranche of emails from the estate of late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein includes one that contains what appear to be references to President Donald Trump allegedly performing oral sex, raising questions the committee cannot answer until the Department of Justice turns over records it has withheld, says U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

Garcia insists the Trump White House is helping block them.

In a Friday afternoon interview with The Advocate, the out California lawmaker responded to a 2018 exchange, which was included in the emails released, between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother, Mark Epstein. In that message, Mark wrote that because Jeffrey Epstein had said he was with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he should “ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”

“Bubba” is a nickname former President Bill Clinton has been known by; however, the email does not clarify who Mark Epstein meant, and the context remains unclear.

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USDA head says ‘everyone’ on SNAP will now have to reapply

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5 days ago

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November 14, 2025

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday said the Trump administration is planning to have all Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries reapply for the program due to alleged fraud.

The secretary said after receiving data on SNAP recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”

“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data what we’re going to find?” she asked during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”

“It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it,” she added.

Every state has a periodic recertification process that requires SNAP or food stamp recipients to update their whereabouts and earnings, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most municipalities require updated data every six to 12 months.

“Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of State data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with States. “

Earlier this month, food stamps were threatened amid the government shutdown as the Trump administration argued against using contingency funds to fuel the welfare program.

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Trump orders Bondi to investigate Epstein’s ties to Clinton and other political foes

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5 days ago

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November 14, 2025

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NEW YORK (AP) — Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.

Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.

Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.

Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.

Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”

“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”

In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.

It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.

None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimes

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