Jared Kushner is reported to be one of several White House officials to have communicated with other administration staffers by using a private email account.
According to Politico , President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser communicated with others by such means during the administration’s transition period last December.
Politico added “Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning, and other subjects.”
The website added it has seen and verified roughly two dozen such email transmissions.
Late Sunday, Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell released a statement asserting “Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business. Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These were 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.”
Politico added White House aides known to have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private email since Trump took over the Oval Office eight months ago include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel.
During his presidential campaign against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Trump turned the issue of her private email use for government business during her time as secretary of state under Barack Obama into a hot-button issue where he routinely assailed the former first lady and often led chants of “lock her up” on the campaign trial among his supporters.
Sources add Kushner and wife Ivanka Trump set up their private family domain late last year prior to moving from New York to Washington and accepting formal roles in the administration.
Politico added reps for Kushner have staunchly declined to offer further details about the server the two shared or the security measures taken during its installation.
Kushner is one of a handful of top Trump level staffers who have emerged as central figures in the ongoing Russian investigation being led by former FBI director Robert Mueller that is looking into possible collusion during his campaign.
Politico added the practice of using a personal email account for government business, as opposed to the one assigned, could skirt Presidential Records Act requirements, which stipulates that all documents related to the president’s personal and political activities be archived.
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