Jared Kushner is the latest person to receive a senior role at White House.
Kushner was appointed as the senior adviser at the White House.
This makes him become an adviser to his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, cementing the New York real estate executive’s role as a powerful and at times decisive influence on the president-elect.
The move comes ahead of a Wednesday news conference in which Trump is expected to detail how he plans to manage his company’s potential conflicts-of-interest after he enters the White House.
Mr. Kushner, 35, who married Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka in 2009, is closer to Mr. Trump than any other adviser, a steady and stabilizing presence inside an often chaotic transition team who has provided input on most of his father-in-law’s most consequential hiring and firing decisions.
Mr. Trump described Mr. Kushner as “a tremendous asset and trusted adviser throughout the campaign and transition” in a statement issued early Monday evening announcing an appointment that perhaps more than any other defines the way the incoming president will govern.
Top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee issued a statement within hours of Kushner’s appointment calling on the Justice Department and the Office of Government Ethics to review the appointment’s legality in light of the anti-nepotism statute.
“There is a strong case to be made that the White House is an “agency” for purposes of the anti-nepotism statute and that it would apply to bar Mr. Kushner’s appointment as a White House staff member,” wrote Rep. John Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, and other top Democrats on the committee, in a statement released Monday evening.
Mr. Kushner plans to sell some of his real estate holdings and other assets, his lawyer said. Some ethics experts have questioned whether the appointment will be legal under federal anti-nepotism laws designed to prevent family ties from influencing the functioning of the United States government.
Kushner also will not take a salary as he steps into the West Wing job, an official who briefed on behalf of the transition told reporters later on Monday.