House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., stated Thursday that a legal professional for Jared Kushner told him in December that the president’s son-in-law.
uses the encrypted messaging application WhatsApp for the authentic enterprise, which includes human beings’ remote places. Cummings described the Dec. 19 dialogue with Kushner legal professional Abbe Lowell in a letter to the White House counsel wherein the requested information approximately uses such messaging apps and different communications using White House personnel. Lowell challenged factors of Cummings’s account, writing in his letter that he no longer said that Kushner used WhatsApp to communicate with overseas leaders.
He also stated he told Cummings and then-House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, who changed into the December assembly, that he became no longer familiar with Kushner’s use of the messaging application and referred them to the White House counsel. A White House spokesperson mentioned receiving Cummings’s letter Thursday and stated the chairman’s requests would be reviewed. The use of messaging offerings such as WhatsApp may want to run afoul of White House policy and the Presidential Records Act, which prohibits White House officials from sending a report about “the usage of a nonofficial piece of email account” unless the messages are copied to an official account inside 20 days. According to a Feb. 22, 2017 directive from the White House Counsel’s Office, all White House personnel must “behavior all paintings associated communications to your professional EOP email account” except under “emergency occasions.
” Early remaining 12 months, White House attorneys warned West Wing staffers in obligatory ethics schooling periods now not to use encrypted messaging apps. Kushner attended one of the periods, The Washington Post, mentioned on time. According to Cummings’s letter, Lowell stated that Kushner turned into compliance with statistics preservations guidelines during their December assembly because he took display shots of his communications and forwarded them to his reputable email or National Security Council officers. Questions approximately Kushner’s use of WhatsApp come within the wake of the revelation that Trump remaining yr directed that his son-in-law get hold of a top-secret protection clearance, despite objections using professional intelligence officers.
In his letter Thursday, which turned into first mentioned by using Politico, Cummings stated Lowell additionally told him of their December meeting that Kushner’s wife, presidential adviser Ivanka Trump, changed into continuing to get hold of emails associated with White House business on her electronic mail account and did no longer continue to ahead them to her White House account. In November, the Post said that Ivanka Trump despatched loads of emails in 2017 to White House aides, Cabinet officials, and her assistants about using a personal account, many of which violate federal facts guidelines.
In his letter Thursday, Lowell stated he changed into referring to Ivanka Trump’s email practices before September 2017, when White House attorneys observed her personal email use volume. Cummings asked the White House on Thursday for facts about approximately any appointees who’ve used private email accounts, text messages, phone-based message programs, or encryption software to behavior official enterprise. The request is part of the Oversight Committee’s broader effort to get facts approximately White House operations and Kushner’s security clearance technique.
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