But his WhatsApps!
by digby
House Democrats are raising new concerns about what they say is recently revealed information from Jared Kushner’s attorney indicating that the senior White House aide has been relying on encrypted messaging service WhatsApp and his personal email account to conduct official business.
The revelation came in a Dec. 19 meeting — made public by the House Oversight and Reform Committee for the first time on Thursday — between Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Rep. Trey Gowdy, the former chairman of the oversight panel, and Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell.
Cummings, who now leads the Oversight Committee, says in a new letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that Lowell confirmed to the two lawmakers that Kushner “continues to use” WhatsApp to conduct White House business. Cummings also indicated that Lowell told them he was unsure whether Kushner had ever used WhatsApp to transmit classified information.
"That's above my pay grade," Lowell told the lawmakers, per Cummings' letter.
Lowell added, according to Cummings, that Kushner is in compliance with recordkeeping law. Lowell told the lawmakers that Kushner takes screenshots of his messages and forwards them to his White House email in order to comply with records preservation laws, Cummings indicated.
I'm sure you all remember how traitorous it was for Hillary Clinton to decide which emails to forward to the State Department.
Kushner, whom the president charged with overseeing the administration’s Middle East policies, reportedly communicates with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman via WhatsApp.
The details of the discussion about Kushner’s email and messaging practices came as part of a new Oversight Committee demand for a slew of new documents from Kushner and other current and former White House officials, including his wife Ivanka Trump, former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, and former top strategist Stephen Bannon.
I'm sure that's fine.
And I think it's really awesome that the scourge of Banghazi, Trey Gowdy is still licking Trump's boots even after finding that out. He quit the Congress so there's no excuse about "fear of the base."
According to Cummings, Lowell also told him and Gowdy that Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter who also serves as a top adviser, conducts official White House business through her personal email account. Cummings suggested that Ivanka Trump was in violation of the Presidential Records Act because she was not forwarding emails to her official White House account that deal with government-related business.
Cummings also told Cipollone that the committee obtained a document showing that McFarland was using an AOL.com account to conduct official White House business. Cummings said the document shows that McFarland was in communication with Tom Barrack, a longtime Trump confidant and the chairman of the president’s Inaugural Committee, about transferring “sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.”
Barrack pitched the plan to Bannon through Bannon’s personal email account, according to Cummings.
We already know what the Republicans would do if they found out a Democrat had used a personal email server. "Lock her up!"
Take a moment to ponder what would be happening if a different president's top aide and son-in-law was using a personal encrypted application to communicate with the leader of a foreign country.
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