President Trump still regularly leads “lock her up!” chants during rallies while — for some unknown reason — continuing to slam Hillary Clinton (in reference to her use of a private email server as secretary of state). So, one would hope that the members of his administration would avoid scrutiny by always using their White House accounts to conduct official White House business, right? Politico reports that more than one West Wing official is guilty of not adhering to that practice, and the prominent name that’s circulating in their story happens to be …. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
According to Politico, Kushner set up the email account — part of a “private family domain” shared with Ivanka — during the transition. The outlet has corroborated the domain’s purchase through public registration records and spoke to multiple anonymous “people with knowledge of events.” At the time of registration/set up, Jared was a de facto campaign manager who planned to continue into government service. He reportedly used this account to communicate with Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, among others. Here’s more from Politico, including a Team Kushner denial:
Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects, according to four people familiar with the correspondence. POLITICO has seen and verified about two dozen emails.
“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, said in a statement Sunday. “Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.”
Fingers remain crossed on this end that Kusnher’s handle is “TheKush,” but surely, that’s a detail that Politico would have included, if true.
This development will undoubtedly spark the interest of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Congress during the Russia probes, so there will probably be some announcment of record-seeking in that regard. Seriously though, Kushner has taken on so many White House roles — senior advisor, SWAT-style team leader, and international man of intrigue — that his apparent use of a private email server (just like Hillary) is amazing.
(Via Politico)