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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.
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.
Hello, I'm a lifelong libertarian voting republican in certain races since I first reached 18. In 2016, I voted AGAINST Hillary because I believe the democratic party, due to their demographics, will be the first to outlaw the most sacred amendment, Freedom of Speech. I still feel that way.
All that said. Trump and Co needed to go and yesterday. We need to purge the Party before Country folks in the Republican party before they ship the sink with them.
Fuck Pelosi. Fuck Trump. Fuck McConnell. Get the old rotten blood all out.
Yep. The problem isn't that Trump made POTUS, the problem is that the only opposition offered for voting was Hillary Clinton.
Most of the votes cast were really votes against one of the candidates.
In reality "None of the above" was the only sensible vote in the last elections.
Yes, Trump promised to "Drain the swamp" but it turned out to be a lie (surprise!!!)
No sig today...
While you are likely right, it also sounds like a poor excuse on Ivanka’s part, when her father was voted in due to Hilary’s emails. Surely it would have made sense to do better than the one accused? At the same time I have read stories where the approved systems are so clunky that this invariably staff do use other methods just to be able to get work done.
Do note I am not here as a supporter of Hilary or Trump, so I am not taking sides.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The only insane frothing at the mouth is the anti-hillary shriekers like you dearie. She was investigated thoroughly for many years. Yet you demand that trump should not and deflect to "Waht aboot hilairy!!!!!" And when your idiocy is treated with the disdain and scorn it deserves, you HAVE to pretend it is just raving lunacy, not people actually connecting to reality and finding you falling FAR SHORT of it. Because otherwise you would not be able to maintain both your idiocy and your ego's satisfaction.
I wish there was a statute of limitations on using Hillary Clinton to excuse bad behaviour.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If you look beyond the obvious partisan memes that continue to be spouted here, there are a couple of much more significant, underlying concerns.
/. readers have a technical background and are familiar with the concept of designing systems with redundancy, reliability and independent controls [to ensure effectiveness]. None of these concepts are beyond us - certainly not beyond an institution with the budget of the federal government.
1. Why have officially mandated guidelines for all those serving in government - including post-holders, employees and advisors - not been tightened? If the concerns raised by the "Clinton Email Server" were as serious as the talking heads would have us believe, then when the Republicans came to power in 2016, why was the first new legislation on the slate not a comprehensive review of "conduct in public office", with permissible and impermissible activities more clearly defined?
3. Why is it acceptable for "dark money" to be given to aid political campaigns, with voters having no visibility of sources and therefore no way of knowing if decisions and votes being cast by elected representatives are given based on representing their electorate or based on the requirements of those special interests?
One way to look at this is as a customer - you a buying a service from the federal government by virtue of the taxes you pay.
In order to be able to look at this objectively, we need to cast aside the specifics of Hilary's email server or Kushner's use of Whatsapp, or Jrvanka's access to Top Secret information through clearances that raised strenuous objections from every agency involved... Instead we have to look at this from th eperspective of imagining a worst-case scenario: that the republic is under direct attack from hostile foreign actors, corrupt insiders and mendacious corporations and make sure that the framework in which government operates is designed from the get-go to safeguard *us* from abuses of that system.
Many
In shore, there are no excuses for the public to accept these failures of their government.
Jared and Ivanka aren't dealing with state secrets
They're not? Then why do they have top level security clearance?
I don't respond to AC's.