Jared & Ivanka: Couple 'Continues To Use' Private Messaging For White House Business, Top Democrat Says (thedailybeast.com)

Freshly Exhumed writes: Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has revealed that senior White House advisor Jared Kushner's lawyer admitted in December that his client "continues to use" WhatsApp to conduct official White House business. The chairman also said that a lawyer for Ivanka Trump and Mr. Kushner told the committee late last year that they additionally used private email accounts for official White House business in a way that may have violated federal records laws. Mr Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell could not say whether his client used WhatsApp to share classified information. Regardless, Cummings says the communications raise questions about whether Kushner and other officials violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires the president and his staff "take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records." As for Ivanka's use of a personal email account to conduct official business, her lawyer says she sent the emails before she was briefed on the rules.

If you're not familiar with WhatsApp, here's what you should know about it: "As of January 2019, more than 1.5 billion users in over 180 countries use WhatsApp, created in 2009 as an alternative to text messaging," reports USA Today. "Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 to make a bigger play in the rapidly-growing messaging market, along with its own Messenger platform, which also boasts 1.5 billion users." The service features end-to-end encryption, meaning the sender and recipient are the only ones who can view the messages.

Comments

Re:LOCK THEM UP

[quantaman]

She wasn't corrupt, sure people donated to her charitable foundation with the hopes of gaining some favour. But would you prefer they donated to her campaign or PAC instead? Or hosted a fundraiser? That kind of stuff was literally standard operating procedure in Washington.

Are you serious? Check the donations. They skyrocketed when she ran for President - and fell like a stone when she failed. Then boomed again when she was suddenly in charge of all US International relations (Sec State). And you're telling me people are not buying her?

Uhhh, you're confusing things.

Like I said, people were donating to gain favour. Obviously they did so more when she was in a position of power or potential power. But that's absolutely Washington SOP.

It's not a bribe as much as a "I'll do something nice for me and I'll hear you out... but I won't actually do something I think is wrong". I mean it's pretty much standard that if you want to meet with a politician you don't have to be a donor.. but it would really help if you were.

It's highly problematic, but it's how the system works, Clinton was entirely normal in that regard.

Like the way her foundation and husband received millions of dollars after choosing not to deny the Russian buyout of Uranium One?

You mean the acquisition that was completely normal and uncontroversial acquisition and H. Clinton had almost nothing to do with anyway?

The multiple ties between Hillary and Russia,

People with international dealings having a few connections to a major country is fine. The problem with Trump is there's a ton of people with big connections to incredibly shady people.

including secret meetings in 2016

as she was candidate Clinton?

The problem with the Trump orbit meetings is:
1) A few of them seem directly related to the stolen emails.
2) Many of the Trump people in question repeatedly lied about the meetings. Either leaving them off official forms or denying they took place under oath.

Funding fake dossiers against candidate Trump?

Sigh. The dossier was opposition research, not "fake". Somethings have been proven wrong, and some have been verified.

Colluding with personal friends in the media to get advance information about campaign questions and the like?

Wasn't corrupt? I guess the Sahara is a frigid, sodden wasteland in your world...

Campaigns do sketching things sometimes. Hell, this guy signed up a fake candidate to launch an attack campaign against his rival then drop out of the race.

Oh, and here's a fun question where I'm really interested to hear the answer.

So lets assume you're right and the dossier really was a "fake dossier".

So... what was the point?

Because it didn't come out before the election, and as you pointed out she certainly had enough friends in the media to put it out.

Hell, they could even "anonymously leak" it somewhere, yet they obviously didn't.

So why get a fake dossier to slander Trump if you don't actually release it till after you already lost the election?

I feel like you w