Ivanka Trump (L) and Jared Kushner have been accused of communicating official White House business over personal email and messaging service accounts. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI |
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March 21 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner have been communicating through private email accounts and messaging applications in violation of the Presidential Records Act and White House policy, the House Oversight and Reform chairman showed Thursday.
In a letter to the White House, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said both Trump and her husband, senior White House advisor Kushner, had been communicating on official business through private email and WhatsApp, an encrypted message service.
Cummings said Abbe Lowell, Kushner and Trumps' personal lawyer, had told him that Kushner used and continues to use WhatsApp for official White House communication.
Lowell told Cummings that Kushner uses the messaging service to communicate with foreign contacts but that he could not say if the president's son-in-law discussed classified information over WhatsApp.
Responding in his own letter Thursday, Lowell said Cummings misrepresented portions of what he told lawmakers and disputed his statements that either Trump or Kushner broke the law, The New York Times reported.
Lowell said that he had not confirmed Kushner was communicating with foreign "leaders" on WhatsApp, but that he messaged "some people."
Kushner is in compliance of the law as he takes screenshots of his communications and forwards them to his official White House email account, Cummings said he was told by Lowell.
Cummings said this information "raises additional security and federal records concerns."
Trump continues to receive emails on official business through her personal account and does not preserve them, Cummings said he learned from Lowell.
"This would appear to violate the Presidential Records Act," Cummings said in the letter.
Cummings had sent the letter to the White House in order to obtain documents on the use of private email and message services by White House officials, a request that has been made before but continues to be ignored, he said.
He said documents were due Jan. 11, and the White House has failed to provide any additional documents for the committee's bipartisan investigation.
"If you continue to withhold these documents from the Committee, we will be forced to consider alternative means to obtain compliance," Cummings said.
The White House has until April 4, he said.
If true, Kushner and Trump would have committed the same crime that the president accused Hilary Clinton of during the 2016 presidential election.
The letter also states that former White House staff K.T. McFarland and Steven Bannon also communicated official business through private email accounts.
White House lawyer said the White House would review Cummings' letter and "provide a reasonable response in due course."
