Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump use private accounts for official business, their lawyer says
The chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee revealed information on Thursday that he said showed Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner used private messaging services for official White House business in a way that may have violated federal records laws.
The chairman, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, said that a lawyer for Ms. Trump, President Trump’s daughter, and Mr. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, told the committee late last year that in addition to a private email account, Mr. Kushner uses an unofficial encrypted messaging service, WhatsApp, for official White House business, including with foreign contacts.
Mr. Cummings said the lawyer, Abbe Lowell, also told lawmakers that Ms. Trump did not preserve some emails sent to her private account if she did not reply to them.
Democrats have barely been able to contain their frustration at what they see as a dark irony in the findings — and in earlier news reports about the couple’s use of private email accounts. Mr. Trump made Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state a central line of attack in his 2016 campaign for president. Even after the F.B.I. declined to charge Mrs. Clinton for her practices and handling of classified information, Republicans in Congress have continued to pick away at the case. [Continue reading…]