Ivanka Trump used personal mail for govt business, violating federal protocol

Ivanka Trump, US President Donald Trump's daughter, sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, the media reported.

White House ethics officials learned of Ivanka's repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit, informed sources told The Washington Post on Monday, November 19.

The review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner, also a senior White House advisor.

Ivanka in the past had said that she was not familiar with some details of the federal records rules.

In response to the development, Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka's attorney and ethics counsel, Abbe Lowell, acknowledged that the President's daughter occasionally used her private email before she was briefed on the rules, but he said none of her messages contained classified information.

"While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ivanka Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family," he said on Monday, November 19.

Mirijanian said Ivanka turned over all her government-related emails months ago so they could be stored permanently with other White House records.

He also said that her email use was different from that of former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who had a private email server in the basement of her New York home.

At one point, an archive of thousands of Clinton's emails was deleted by a computer specialist amid a congressional investigation.

"Ivanka Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organisation, and no emails were ever deleted," The Washington Post quoted Mirijanian as saying.

The emails were sent to White House aides, Cabinet members and Ivanka Trump's assistants, many in violation of public records rules, the paper said. President Donald Trump mercilessly criticised his 2016 Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, for using a private email server during her time as secretary of state, labelling her "Crooked Hillary" and saying she belonged in jail.

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the email use, but a spokesman for Ivanka Trump's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, didn't dispute the report.

Ivanka and Kushner set up personal emails with the domain "ijkfamily.com" through a Microsoft system in December 2016, as they were preparing to move to Washington so Kushner could join the White House, according to informed sources.

The couple's emails were prescreened by the Trump Organization for security problems such as viruses but were stored by Microsoft.

The emails the group uncovered include correspondence between Ivanka Trump and Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.