In 2017, first daughter Ivanka Trump sent out hundreds of emails about government business through her personal email account. If this sounds vaguely like a bit of
déjà vu, you would not be incorrect—well, except there seems to be an hypocritical lack of chants to “lock her up.”
Many of those emails violated federal records rules,
according to the Washington Post, and have apparently sent some advisers to President Donald Trump in a tailspin, given how similar the use of emails is to that of Hillary Clinton, who got dragged by the Trump administration throughout the entire 2016 campaign. Of his most famous chants of Clinton around that period, was the repeated demand to “Lock her up!” a notion that was repeated heavily throughout the election season by his supporters.
Ivanka Trump reportedly sent emails to White House aides, cabinet officials and her assistants using her private email with a domain that is shared with her husband, Jared Kushner.
Nonetheless, the White House is currently avoiding the topic, referring requests for comments to Ivanka Trump’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell.
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Lowell, acknowledged in a statement that Ivanka Trump occasionally did use her personal email before she was made aware of the rules (because it wasn’t like her father’s entire campaign was making a mockery of Clinton’s use of emails at all), adding that none of the correspondence contained classified information.
“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” Mirijanian said in a statement.
He added that the first daughter had handed over all the government-related emails months ago so that they could be stored with other White House records. And then, naturally, took the time to attempt to distance Ivanka Trump’s use of emails from that of Clintons.
“Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted,” he added.
Regardless, many on Twitter latched on to the moment and called out the administration on its apparent hypocrisy.
