Melania Trump Used Private Email Accounts In The White House, Former Friend Alleges

First Lady Melania Trump used private email accounts and messaging apps while in the White House, claims her former friend who has written the tell-all memoir, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff alleged that the first lady used a private Trump Organization email account, an email from a MelaniaTrump.com domain, and two messaging apps — iMessage and Signal — while in the White House.

“Melania and I both didn’t use White House emails,” she said, noting that she left the allegations out of the book because there were other, more compelling matters to write about.

The publication reviewed some of those messages and found that they largely had to do with mundane, day-to-day operations within the White House, such as the logistics of the traditional White House Easter Egg Roll, the daily schedules of Trump and her husband during state visits, and internal hiring and firing decisions — including that of Wolkoff.

Richard Painter, who served as the White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, said Trump didn’t do anything illegal, considering she is not a government employee and thus isn’t required by law to use a government email server.

However, he also added that — while legal — her actions were not best practices.

“If she is doing United States government business, she should be using the White House email,” he said, noting that, if those emails aren’t carefully maintained, the White House might not be able to produce them if they’re ever subpoenaed.

Indeed, the alleged use of private email accounts by members of the Trump family isn’t just limited to the first lady. Last year, the House Oversight Committee investigated the use of private email to conduct government business by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Similarly, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross also allegedly used a private email account to conduct official business.

Painter noted the Trump campaign’s focus on Hillary Clinton’s alleged use of private email accounts. During the 2016 presidential campaign, they referred to her usage of private servers as “worse than Watergate.”

“It’s total hypocrisy. They got elected acting as if Hillary Clinton ought to be in jail for using the wrong email,” Painter said.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Wolkoff’s book contains multiple damning allegations about the first lady, including that she compared the White House to an “out-of-control circus” run by the Trump kids.