Jared’s got email scandal
Private account for W. House biz
CALL HIM “Crooked Jared.”
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, has been using a private email account to conduct White House business.
Kushner created a private family domain last December during the transition period after the election, Politico reported Sunday.
He has since used the account to discuss everything from press stories to event planning and other government matters with White House officials, the report said.
He wrote emails from the account to former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Stephen Bannon, economic adviser Gary Cohn and spokesman Josh Raffel.
Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell maintained he uses a White House email address to conduct government business.
Bannon and Priebus also used private email accounts to correspond with Kushner and others, the Politico story said.
“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,” Lowell said.
“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.”
There was no indication that Kushner shared any sensitive or classified material on his private account.
Federal law requires that all White House records be preserved, including emails.
Aides said Kushner prefers communicating with phone calls or texts over emails.
Ivanka Trump, who is married to Kushner and serves as an assistant to her father, also has an email account on the private domain, according to the report.
During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly slammed rival Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state, calling her “Crooked Hillary” and suggesting the government should “lock her up.”
Former FBI Director James Comey said he found no evidence that Clinton committed a crime.
Kushner, meanwhile, has faced ongoing scrutiny in the expanding federal probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is taking a close look at Kushner’s contacts with Russia’s former ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and the head of Russia’s government-owned Vnesheconombank, Sergey Gorkov.
When he applied for security clearance, Kushner failed to disclose his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign and the transition.
Insiders told Politico that Kushner’s private and public email may be of interest to FBI and congressional investigators.
Earlier this month, the White House shot down reports that Trump’s legal team had advised the President that Kushner should step down from his position.