Jared Kushner's been using a private email account for some White House correspondence
Emails, those things you regularly ignore unless you’re the one waiting on a reply, have once again come to the fore of the political landscape, as Politico reports that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has been using a private email account for correspondence with senior White House officials. Kushner apparently set up the account during the post-election flurry of activity in December 2016, and has been using it along with his own proper White House account.
The publication says it’s “seen and verified about two dozen emails” sent by Kushner via his private account. Kushner lawyer Abbe Lowell has already released a statement about the emails, which number “fewer than 100 emails from January through August” and “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.”
In addition to Kushner’s counsel claiming there’s really nothing to see here, Politico’s sources indicate the Trump official didn’t use his private account to share sensitive or classified materials. He doesn’t appear to use email much at all—White House aides claim he’s more likely to call or text, which is actually pretty surprising, given that he so rarely speaks. But after all, Kushner prefers in-person meetings, especially when it comes to hanging out with folks from Russia. Still, this discovery doesn’t look favorably on Kushner, who’s been under investigation for those aforementioned meetings with Russian individuals.
Ivanka Trump also has an email account on the same domain, but there’s no indication that she’s used it in her capacity as Best First Daughter or White House whatever. Naturally, the GOP’s remained mum about this particular security failing, even though its members got (and remain) so hot around the collar over the news that Hillary Clinton used a secure private email server while serving as Secretary Of State. So we shouldn’t expect to hear “But his emails!” anytime soon, let alone “Lock him up!,” certainly not when the president is too busy yelling at peaceful protestors.