Congress demands White House fork over Ivanka's work emails from her private account

Trump attacked his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton for her limited use of a personal email when she was the nation’s top diplomat, but Trump officials aren’t known to practice what they preach. 

In a letter to the White House, the House Oversight Committee demanded Monday that the administration turn over all messages and communications that Trump senior officials — including Trump’s daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner — sent through personal accounts, in order to evaluate whether they broke federal law. The committee previously asked for certain documents, but following obstruction from the administration, the House is upping its requests. 

“The purpose of this investigation is to determine why White House officials used non-official email accounts, texting services and encrypted applications for official business,” the letter said.

Ivanka Trump has been one of the most prolific users of personal email for government business under the current administration. From December 2016 throughout September 2017, Ivanka sent hundreds of emails under a private domain to government officials potentially in violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires official business to be conducted on official government accounts so information can be stored and preserved. 

But despite her father calling for his presidential opponent to be jailed over use of a private email server, Ivanka has claimed that the same standard does not apply to her. Additionally, Republicans in Congress knew about Ivanka’s improper email use for a year before the news broke, but refused to conduct a proper investigation. 

But her emails might not just violate federal law, they could also violate the Trump administration’s policy that all White House personnel conduct work-related communications from their official government accounts, the letter noted. 

Of course, Ivanka hasn’t been the only White House official that has used private email to handle government business. In March it was reported that Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, K.T. McFarland, apparently used a personal AOL email account to discuss the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. The committee’s letter also said that the report issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that Steve Bannon also used personal communications for government work. 

Under a Democratic House, it appears communication oversight is finally coming to the White House.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.