Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk through the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) (Associated Press) 
 
 Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk through the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly every morning since their father's stunning victory on Election Day, three of Donald Trump's grown children walk through the Trump Tower lobby and board an elevator. But are Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric going to the campaign office on the fifth floor? Their business offices on the 25th floor? The president-elect's penthouse on the 56th floor? 
 
 That uncertainty highlights the multiple roles the children play for their father. For the past year, the lines were constantly blurred between political campaign and business empire, raising questions about a possible conflict of interest between Trump's White House and his sprawling business interests. 
 
 The children are poised to wield incredible influence over their father, even if they don't follow him to Washington. Trump said consistently during the campaign that if he won, those children would stay in New York and run his business. But the three — plus Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner — were all named to the transition team's executive committee. 
 
 So far, they've been heavily involved in shaping the new administration. They've sat in on meetings and taken late night calls from their father. They advocated for making Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, the White House chief of staff. They counseled against bringing back Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign manager, who was fired in June on their advice. 
 
 On Thursday, Ivanka Trump and Kushner were present for the president-elect's meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Trump Tower. 
 
 Trump has insisted he will build a wall between his White House and his company by placing his holdings into a blind trust, but with his children as its trustees. Federal requirements are that independent outsiders run such trusts. 
 
 "We are in the process of vetting various structures with the goal of the immediate transfer of management of The Trump Organization and its portfolio of businesses to Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump as well as a team of highly skilled executives," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said. She said the structure "will comply with all applicable rules and regulations." 
 
 Trump's company would be the largest business portfolio to belong to a modern sitting president. Federal ethics rules would allow Trump to run his business interests from the White House, or, perhaps more likely, influence decisions made by his children. 
 
 That raises conflict of interest concerns. For example, Trump could set domestic policy while making deals abroad that could affect his corporation, even if it were technically in his children's hands. 
 
 Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser, disputed the idea that the Trump children's involvement in the transition could lead to a breach of trust. 
 
 "You're presuming that they are doing certain things that they should not be doing," Conway said. "They are his children. And they've been his business colleagues for a long period of time. They obviously will support their father as president." 
 
 But the potentially problematic entanglement revealed itself this past week when Ivanka Trump's company promoted a $10,800 bracelet she wore during a "60 Minutes" interview on CBS. The spokeswoman for the company later apologized. 
 
 The children — they were not made available for interviews — are limited in what formal role they could take in a Trump administration. 
 
 Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits the president from appointing a family member to work in the office or agency they oversee. The measure was passed as a reaction to President John F. Kennedy appointing his brother Robert as attorney general. 
 
 But the law does not appear to prevent the children — or Kushner, who is one of Trump's closest aides and is said to be weighing a White House role — from serving as unpaid advisers or providing informal counsel. 
 
 The three grown children — their mother is Ivana Trump, Trump's first wife — delivered well-received speeches at this summer's Republican National Convention in which they tried to humanize their father. 
 
 Don Jr. and Eric were staples on conservative radio and on the road, trekking to campaign offices and small rallies across battleground states like Ohio and North Carolina. Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, was utilized in some of the campaign's biggest moments, including introducing her father before his convention speech, unveiling his family leave plan and campaigning across the crucial Philadelphia suburbs. 
 
 Another daughter, Tiffany Trump, a recent college graduate whose mother is Trump's second wife, Marla Maples, also made appearances on her father's behalf. Trump's youngest child, 10-year-old Barron, whose mother is the president-elect's current wife, Melania, is enrolled at a private Manhattan school. Trump on Sunday told reporters that Mrs. Trump and their son will move to Washington after the school year ends. 
 
 For the three eldest Trump kids, there were bumps in the road. 
 
 Eric and Ivanka were the subject of some embarrassing headlines when it was revealed that they were not registered to vote in time for their father in the New York primary. An African big-game safari Eric and Don Jr. took drew criticism from animal rights activists. And Don Jr. has received criticism for tweeting images likening Syrian refugees to a poisoned bowl of Skittles candy and a cartoon character appropriated by white supremacists. 
 
 But now they stand poised to be the most influential presidential children in decades, as recent White House offspring have been far younger than the eldest Trump children, who are all in their 30s. During the campaign, Eric Trump insisted that the children's main focus "was the company," but "we'd always be one phone call away" if needed, the younger Trump told The Associated Press in May. "We'd do anything for the man." 
 
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 Reach Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire ||||| Once the untouchable son-in-law in a White House where top aides jockey for the president’s ear, Jared Kushner has now been cast in a new role: reassuring people that he’s not going to resign, while colleagues question whether he can survive politically. 
 
 Any victory lap Kushner hoped to enjoy after pulling off a successful presidential foreign trip to the Middle East was cut short after The Washington Post reported that during the transition he discussed setting up a secret back channel with the Russian ambassador. He also failed to disclose earlier phone calls with Russian officials, according to a Reuters report. 
 
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 The back channel was never established. But the news puts Kushner squarely in the middle of a wide-ranging FBI investigation into whether Trump campaign advisers were working with Russian operatives to influence the results of the 2016 election. 
 
 And it means that the main architect of Trump’s visit to the Middle East is now the lead distraction that will greet the president, who was flying home from nine days abroad on Saturday, returning from what was seen, overall, as a successful foreign trip. 
 
 “It’s clear that Jared Kushner will be under intense scrutiny at a time when his father-in-law has named him everything but chief cook and bottle washer,” said Democratic strategist David Axelrod, a former top White House adviser to President Barack Obama. “It’s bad for the prospects of calm at the White House.” 
 
 Kushner’s allies are quick to point out that he hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing, and his lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, has said Kushner volunteered to share with Congress anything he knows about meetings with the Russians. People familiar with the matter also speculated that Sergey Kislyak may have exaggerated Kushner’s role in his version of events. 
 
 A senior administration official said there was widespread concern, predating the foreign trip, that Kushner was in trouble — but “no one that I know has been asked to provide documents” and it wasn’t talked about openly in the White House or staff meetings. 
 
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 “No one knows what to make of it because he’s there every day, making decisions, in the Oval,” this person said. “So everyone just tries to act normal.” 
 
 A White House spokesman declined to comment. 
 
 But outside of Kushner’s small circle of trust — a group that includes Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, and advisers Hope Hicks, Josh Raffel, Dina Powell, Gary Cohn, Chris Liddell and Reed Cordish — many West Wing advisers are simultaneously rattled by the back-channel revelations and feeling a sense of schadenfreude. 
 
 The focus on a family member also brings the Russia-related heat closer to Trump. Kushner has risen so quickly in the White House that his colleagues grumble about “principal confusion” — when a staffer thinks that the reflected spotlight of the boss is actually shining on him. Colleagues have rolled their eyes that Kushner has hired a communications adviser to work on his own portfolio. That aide, Raffel, traveled abroad with him to Riyadh, Jerusalem and Rome. 
 
 Kushner, who some say has sealed himself off from the competing White House power centers, may now be in a position of needing allies. And the pool of people in New York City eager to come to his defense has shrunk. 
 
 Internally at the White House, according to multiple sources, there is a feeling of resentment among people about Kushner’s special status as a family member, and a feeling that it’s about time for him to have a turn under the gun. 
 
 There is also a sense of uncertainty about how long Kushner and Ivanka Trump — who associates say likes, but doesn’t love, Washington — are planning to stick it out. Some have noted that they rent their Kalorama mansion, which allows them to keep their options of moving back to Manhattan more open. 
 
 But for now, according to a person familiar with the situation, Kushner isn’t going anywhere. 
 
 On Friday, a White House official said, Kushner was back in his West Wing office and had a working lunch with chief of staff Reince Priebus to recap the trip. 
 
 Kushner, who flew home from Rome commercial on Thursday with his wife after deciding a week earlier to cut his trip short, is not easily ruffled, this person said. His plan moving forward is to keep his head down and focus on his work, including turning his attention back to building his Office of American Innovation now that the foreign trip is behind him. 
 
 The news about Kushner, whose face blanketed cable news on Saturday, overshadowed Trump’s foreign trip on its final day. 
 
 At a press briefing in Taormina on Friday, White House officials were peppered with questions about Kushner’s role and tried to downplay the significance of the alleged back-channel plan. 
 
 “We have back-channel communications with a number of countries,” national security adviser H.R. McMaster said. “What that allows you to do is communicate in a discreet manner, so I’m not concerned.” 
 
 Chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, a close Kushner ally, added: “We’re not going to comment on Jared.” 
 
 Another official noted that it was Kushner’s conversations with foreign officials during the transition that allowed him to form relationships with the Saudis and pull off a successful first foreign trip for Trump. They also pointed to the good relationships with China and Mexico, that they credited to “back-channel” style relationships Kushner developed with those countries during the campaign. 
 
 But many outside observers pointed to Kushner’s naiveté in understanding the need for caution when it comes to handling relationships with Moscow. 
 
 The spotlight on Kushner’s involvement with the Russians comes at a time when the powerful son-in-law has been telling associates that he is frustrated with his job. 
 
 Two associates who have spoken to Kushner in recent weeks described him as “unhappy” and “miserable,” in part because he has not been able to make the changes he wants to under his father-in-law. Kushner, the source said, has recently seemed resigned to the fact that the internal dysfunction that has defined the first months of Trump’s administration is unlikely to pass. “He’s still trying to tell people it will improve, but he seems like he was trying to convince himself,” the source said. 
 
 Others, however, said there’s a healthy recognition that this is what it’s like to be in the Trump White House: a successful foreign trip one week, drowned out by negative headlines the following. 
 
 Meanwhile, Democrats said they are planning to make Kushner a focus in the coming weeks. 
 
 “There is no way Jared Kushner should have a top-level security clearance right now,” said Brian Fallon, who served as press secretary to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and before that as a spokesman for the Department of Justice. “In light of what we now know he discussed with Kislyak, it is impossible to believe Kushner’s omission of that secret meeting from his clearance application form was an accident. His clearance should be stripped at least until the FBI gets to the bottom of this.” 
 
 He added: “If Republicans will not join in demanding this of the White House, Democrats would be more than justified in grinding the Senate to a halt and opposing any new Trump nominees.” 
 
 And Senate Democrats said that they were planning to use the latest Russia-related crisis to increase pressure on attaching Russia sanctions to the Iran sanctions bill that passed the Foreign Relations Committee last week. One source on the Hill said many Democrats don’t want that bill to move without a Russia sanctions bill alongside it, and that pressure will now only increase. 
 
 Kushner’s attorney, Gorelick, said she was not available to speak on Saturday. On Friday, she said in a statement that Kushner had “no recollection” of the calls reported by Reuters but did not respond directly to reports concerning the back-channel communications. 
 
 Tara Palmeri contributed to this report.
– Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is expected to end up with an influential White House role, and pundit Mike Allen's new Axios newsletter says lawyers have figured out a way around nepotism rules that will result in a title as "senior adviser." The latest cover of New York magazine has a different title: "President In-Law." The story provides perhaps the most in-depth look so far at Ivanka Trump's 35-year-old husband, and it throws a bit of cold water on the notion that Kushner will act as a "force for moderation" on the new president's most controversial ideas. While Kushner has become one of Trump's most trusted advisers, "there’s little evidence that anyone can moderate Trump, other than Trump himself, and there is little doubt where Kushner’s ultimate loyalties lie," writes Andrew Rice. As Kushner himself has put it: "family first." The story details what seems to have been a profound change in Kushner over the past year, as he surprised those in New York's elite circles who knew him, or thought they knew him, by embracing his father-in-law's campaign so strongly. "Some of the same Manhattan liberals who ostracized [Kushner] during the campaign were rattled afterward, and they sent him emails, trying to offer healing words of congratulations and conciliation," writes Rice. "These went right in the trash." And while Kushner is described as soft-spoken, that is true only in the most literal sense: His voice is, in fact, soft, but Kushner himself is described as aggressive and driven. In fact, he "is more like father-in-law than anyone imagines," declares the piece. Read it in full here.