House Oversight panel expands probe into personal email use by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

(Image credit: REUTERS/Pool)

published 2 July 2019

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is reviewing why Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and other White House aides used personal email accounts to conduct official business, the panel's chair, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), said Monday.

Lawmakers began looking at the use of personal accounts for work matters in 2017, and in a letter sent Monday, Cummings notified White House Counsel Pat Cipollone of the probe's expansion, sharing that 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." He also requested all pertinent communications sent by senior officials.

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Under the law, anything sent or received by a non-official email account must be forwarded to an official account within 20 days. The committee will investigate why this didn't happen, and whether White House officials wanted to keep any of the topics discussed hidden, Cummings said. In 2016, President Trump berated Hillary Clinton for using a private server while secretary of state, and continues to bring it up at his rallies.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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