• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, December 16, 2016

While Donald Trump’s cabinet is put together, what has remained constant is his children’s deep involvement with both the cabinet-selection process and overall strategy.

Back in October, Donald Trump Jr. spoke with pro-Russian activists in France about the Syrian crisis. Ivanka sat in on a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan shortly after her father became president-elect.

Trump assures the U.S. his only focus will be his duties as president, leaving his business dealings to his children. That claim is jump-starting a vigorous conflict-of-interest debate. His recent meeting with tech executives, with his children in the room, further clouds the hazy relationship between business and politics.

When Trump met with tech titans Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sheryl Sandberg and Peter Thiel, among others, on Wednesday at Trump Tower, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump joined them at the table. (By contrast, President Jimmy Carter was forbidden to hire his son as an unpaid intern, while First Lady Hillary Clinton was pilloried for handling health-care initiatives.)

“President-elect Trump and his family continue to blur the line between public service and Trump business operations,” Scott Amey of the Project on Government Oversight warns The Hill. “If Trump is serious about only working for the American public, it should have started weeks ago — and his children should have stayed in the boardroom.”

Reports have also emerged that Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner may join Donald Trump in the White House come January 20. If that happens, and Ivanka retains active involvement in the Trump Organization, one presumes the president will continue influencing his business operations well into his term. (Kushner, who runs his own billion-dollar real-estate enterprise, is also raising eyebrows.)

Further cementing the clear appearance of conflict, Ivanka Trump auctioned off a $60,000 coffee meeting won by London-based investment manager Ozan M. Ozkural. He was particularly interested in hearing about the Trump organization’s future business dealings in Turkey and other foreign countries.

“The nature of my business, we talk to a lot of different governments, a lot of politicians and lawmakers across the world,” Mr. Ozkural said, according to The New York Times. “You end up getting a better sense of what the modus operandi will be.”

At this point, it appears virtually impossible for Trump to separate himself from his business interests. Particularly worrisome to constitutional lawyers, his children are likely to have an informal public role, commingling their interests with government policies.