Elijah Cummings just accused Ivanka Trump of “violating federal law”

House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) has been waiting two long years to throw the book at the Trump family over their rampant corruption and brazen disregard for record-keeping legislation, and now he finally has his chance.

On Thursday, Rep. Cummings sent a letter to the White House accusing Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump of violating federal law by not preserving all of her official emails and alleging that her husband, Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, used an instant messaging app to illegally circumvent U.S. diplomatic channels while conducting government business with foreign nationals.

Cummings’ source was Ivanka Trump’s lawyer himself, Abbe Lowell, who told the committee “that [Ivanka] Trump doesn’t preserve official emails she receives in her personal account if she doesn’t respond to them.”

Lowell quickly issued a letter of his own hours after Cummings had delivered his, hurriedly backtracking and insisting that he only meant she didn’t keep any of her emails up to September 2017 — still a whole nine months in office — and since then “she always forwards official business to her White House account.”

As for Jared’s private chats with members of the Saudi royal family, Lowell said that Kushner takes “screenshots” of the chats and sends them to his official White House email, which is ridiculous and an easily manipulable way of recording information.

The letter from Trump’s lawyer makes it clear that both Jared and Ivanka still use their personal emails for official government business, an act of heinous political heresy considering that her father’s primary campaign argument was that Hillary Clinton had committed crimes by using a personal email server for her government work and that she deserved to be locked up for it.

It’s safe to say that the actions of both Jared and Ivanka raise serious “security and federal records concerns,” as Cummings said in an understatement. Given that Jared Kushner has been accused of leaking classified information to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to aide his bloody purges against internal threats to his power and has been linked to a mysterious plot to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, the American people deserve to know what he and his wife have been saying in their private email accounts — and considering their family’s severe stance on information technology security, they must face serious punishment for violating federal law.

Perhaps “locking them up” might do it.

Read Rep. Cummings’ whole letter here.

Original reporting Chad Day and Jill Colvin at the Associated Press.

 

Colin Taylor

Managing Editor

Colin Taylor is the managing editor of the Washington Press. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice, equality, and universal health care in America.