Politics - News Analysis

Ivanka Trump Claims She Had No Idea Using Private Email Was Bad

During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump regularly railed against his rival, Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State. His rallies often featured crowds chanting “lock her up,” directed at Clinton’s email use. Now, the president’s own daughter is claiming that she was unaware of the fact that it was inappropriate to use her private email for government business.

According to a report published by The Washington Post on Monday, Ivanka used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails last year. The emails were sent to Cabinet officials, White House aides and her own assistants. The emails were related to government business and sent using a private personal email account, not the secure email provided by the government.

Ivanka used an email account that is connected to a domain also used by her husband, and fellow White House official, Jared Kushner. Peter Mirijanian is a spokesman for Ivanka’s lawyer Abbe Lowell. Mirijanian confirmed that Ivanka used her private email for government business prior to being told that it was a problem, apparently, she did not pay much attention during her father’s campaign.

Mirijanian told The Washington Post, “While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family.”

Austin Evers is the executive director of the watchdog group, American Oversight. The group made the public records request that uncovered Ivanka’s email use. Evers says it is difficult to buy the excuse that Ivanka simply did not know better, considering the prominent place email use took during the campaign.

Evers said, “There’s the obvious hypocrisy that her father ran on the misuse of personal email as a central tenet of his campaign. There is no reasonable suggestion that she didn’t know better.” He continued, “Clearly everyone joining the Trump administration should have been on high alert about personal email use.”

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