Thread: Kushner used private email to conduct White House business

Kushner used private email to conduct White House business

The senior adviser set up the account after the election. Other West Wing officials have also used private email accounts for official business.

By JOSH DAWSEY
09/24/2017 03:34 PM EDT
Updated 09/24/2017 07:27 PM EDT



White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has been under scrutiny in the ongoing Russia probes, which have expanded to include potential obstruction of justice by the president and his aides since January, and Kushner’s private email traffic may also be of interest to FBI and congressional investigators. | Pablo Marintez Monsivais/AP


Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business.

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, according to four people familiar with the correspondence.

POLITICO has seen and verified about two dozen emails.


“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, said in a statement Sunday.

“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 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.”

Aides who have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private account since President Donald Trump took office in January include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel, according to emails described to or shown to POLITICO. In some cases, those White House officials have emailed Kushner’s account first, said people familiar with the messages. At times, Bannon and Priebus have also used private email accounts to correspond with Kushner and others.

The decision to set up new, private accounts as Kushner was preparing to enter the White House came in the wake of a bitter election campaign in which Trump routinely excoriated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for using a personal email account to handle government business when she was secretary of state.

There is no indication that Kushner has shared any sensitive or classified material on his private account, or that he relies on his private email account more than his official White House account to conduct government business. Aides say he prefers to call or text over using email.


Still, Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, set up their private family domain late last year before moving to Washington from New York, according to people with knowledge of events as well as publicly available internet registration records. At the time, Kushner — who served as a senior campaign adviser — was expected to be named to a White House role, while Ivanka Trump was publicly saying she didn’t plan to work in her father’s administration.

Kushner's representatives declined to detail the server or security measures on it.

People familiar with the account say it was primarily set up for Kushner’s personal communications, but he has used it to communicate with acquaintances outside the White House about matters relating to Trump and the administration, according to people who have received messages, as well as with his White House colleagues.

Kushner has been under scrutiny in the ongoing Russia probes, which have expanded to include potential obstruction of justice by the president and his aides since January, and Kushner’s private email traffic may also be of interest to FBI and congressional investigators.

Ivanka Trump, now an assistant to the president, has an email account on the same domain, they said. POLITICO has not seen Ivanka Trump’s correspondence, and there is no indication that she used her account to discuss government business.

Private email traffic among White House aides — some of it sent between personal email accounts rather than to or from government addresses — could skirt the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, which requires all documents related to the president’s personal and political activities to be archived. Trump himself is not known to use email but occasionally has email messages to his assistant printed and presented to him.

Lowell said Kushner has adhered to government record-keeping requirements by forwarding all the emails to his account, though POLITICO could not verify that.

Other White House officials have also sometimes used personal accounts to correspond with Kushner and with each other, according to emails seen by POLITICO and people familiar with Kushner’s correspondence. They have also used encrypted apps like Signal and Confide that automatically delete messages, prompting former press secretary Sean Spicer in February to issue a warning to communications staffers that using such apps could violate the Presidential Records Act.

The use of personal email accounts in the Trump White House has been somewhat common, even though the president has been a harsh critic of Clinton’s private email habits, frequently leading “lock her up” chants as he traveled across the country on the campaign trail.

“It was an incredibly effective attack,” said Evan Siegfried, a GOP consultant. “He did a great job of injecting the emails into the mainstream.”


Clinton was the target of an extensive FBI investigation, overseen by former FBI Director James Comey, into whether she mishandled classified material by sending or receiving it via her non-government email address.

In her newly released memoir, Clinton cited the investigation into her email practices as one reason for her defeat. Comey, who in July 2016 formally cleared her of any wrongdoing, reopened the issue in late October, days before the election, after finding a cache of emails backed up on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin.
The 2016 election was also shaped by the release of hacked emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee as well as from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The hack is being investigated as part of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A former Obama administration lawyer said aides were asked to not use personal email accounts for official or political business but that occasionally an aide would send a message and later forward it to their account.

If emails related to Trump aren’t saved, it could be difficult for historians, according to Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. Zelizer said that historians can provide a richer history of how administrations work — and historians have feared for years that the proliferation of email will lead some people to do their business in ways in which the records can’t be archived. Zelizer said it could also make the job more difficult for investigators seeking to understand parts of the White House.

“There’s a reason we require officials to keep those records,” said Zelizer. “Even if 80 percent of someone’s records are not interesting, the other 20 percent can be very illuminating on how an administration worked.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...e-house-243071

Like the clintons, the rich think rules do not apply to them.

Aside from trump meeting with faux gras server pelosi & schumer, glad we haven't heard much more from the jarvanka's influencing our American priorities further; e.g. meeting with the likes of graham & others to chitchat @ amnesty & daca. trump got a lot of flak over the apparent influences of his family that were not voted into office and are of liberal leanings.

trump, live up to your promises no matter what the jarvanka's want. This is the most important business in USA (running this country), we don't give a hoot @ spoiled "think their important status" rich kids desires & concepts that are unlike the campaign promises that got you elected..

Ivanka Trump Used a Personal Email Account for Government Work

THE GEORGE W. BUSH WHITE HOUSE ‘LOST’ 22 MILLION EMAILS

Jared Kushner's lawyer, fooled by 'email prankster,' offers window into private email controversy
Natasha Bertrand Sep. 26, 2017, 10:26 AM

Reuters Abbe Lowell, a top Washington lawyer, exchanged emails on Monday with a prankster posing as his client Jared Kushner, at one point telling the prankster he needed to see "all emails" sent and received from a private email account Kushner had set up in December.

The exchange, masterminded by amateur Trump-Russia sleuth Jeff Jetton and executed by a prankster who tweets as @SINON_REBORN, comes as Kushner is dealing with his own minor email scandal and offers a window into how his team is responding in its initial stages. Politico reported on Sunday that Kushner had used a private email address to communicate with top White House officials, including the former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former chief strategist Steve Bannon. The New York Times reported on Monday night that as many as six top White House officials, including Priebus and Bannon, had used private email accounts to discuss White House matters.

Lowell's exchange with the man posing as Kushner marks the second time this month that a top lawyer representing a senior White House official corresponded with the prankster thinking he was a colleague or client. The White House special counsel, Ty Cobb, disclosed information about the FBI's Russia investigation to the prankster earlier this month thinking he was the White House social-media director, Dan Scavino.

On Monday, the prankster wrote to Lowell from the address kushner.jared@mail.com asking what he should do with "some correspondence on my private email ... featuring adult content." "Can I remove these?" the prankster asked. "Forwarded or received from WH officials?" Lowell responded. "I think one was forwarded from a White House official, we had discussed a shared interest of sorts," the prankster said. "It was unsolicited. Then there are a handful more, but not from officials." "I need to see I think all emails between you and WH (just for me and us)," Lowell wrote. "We need to send any officials emails to your WH account. Not stuff like you asked about. None of those are going anywhere."

"But we can bury it?" the prankster responded. "I'm so embarrassed. It's fairly specialist stuff, half naked women on a trampoline, standing on legoscenes, the tag for the movie was #standingOnTheLittlePeople " Lowell replied: "Don't delete. Don't send to anyone. Let's chat in a bit."

Lowell declined to comment on the record when asked about the exchange. He said in a previous statement that "fewer than a hundred 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." "All non-personal emails were forwarded to his official address and all have been preserved in any event," the statement said.

Lowell's suggestion that he needs to see all emails sent or received from Kushner's private account raises questions about whether he has fully examined the messages and what kind of information they contained. Lowell said in his initial statement that the emails "usually forwarded news articles or political commentary," and "most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange."

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, said he was "shocked to learn that Kushner's lawyer did not review the relevant emails before issuing a statement making assertions about what was in them and how many there were." "A lawyer should never issue a public statement based solely on the client's recollection," Mariotti said, "because clients could forget key details or be less than forthcoming with their attorney."

http://www.businessinsider.com/jared...private-2017-9

Exclusive: Kushner didn't disclose personal email account to Senate intel committee

By Jake Tapper, Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent
Updated 9:59 PM ET, Thu September 28, 2017
video at link -Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)In his closed interview with the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, White House senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner did not share the existence of his personal email account, which he has used for official business, CNN has learned.

CNN has also learned that the chair and vice chair of the committee were so unhappy that they learned about the existence of his personal email account via news reports that they wrote him a letter via his attorney Thursday instructing him to double-check that he has turned over every relevant document to the committee including those from his "'personal email account' described to the news media, as well as all other email accounts, messaging apps, or similar communications channels you may have used, or that may contain information relevant to our inquiry.

The emphasis in the letter on "all other" personal accounts not known by the committee would seem to be a reflection of the frustration the committee leaders feel with that fact that Kushner was not up-front about the existence of his personal email account and their desire for him to cover the bases of all his possible communications avenues when responding to their letter. This issue could become more serious if there emerge any emails or communications related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that Kushner has not turned over, and whether he did so with the express purpose of concealing information from the committee.

Kushner's attorney, Abbe Lowell, told CNN, "It is perfectly normal that the committees would want to make sure that they received all pertinent records. We did review this account at the time and there were no responsive or relevant documents there. The committee was so informed when documents were produced and there is no issue here."

The Senate intelligence committee had no official comment.

The chairman of the committee, North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, and the vice chair, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, learned of the existence of the personal email account, which Kushner used from January through August of this year, via the media. Their letter specifically references a CNN digital story headlined "Attorney: Kushner used private email account to talk to WH officials."

CNN obtained the letter labeled "COMMITTEE SENSITIVE" via the self-styled "email prankster," a man in the UK who has several times impersonated members of the orbit around President Donald Trump to others in that circle.

Earlier this week, the prankster pretended to be Kushner and wrote to Kushner's real attorney, Lowell, about the (fictitious) adult content of emails he had shared with White House officials, as covered by Business Insider. Apparently, earlier Thursday, when Lowell attempted to forward the very real letter from the very legitimate Senate intelligence committee leaders, his email auto-fill supplied the address of the very fake Kushner account run by the prankster. A person familiar with the email transmission told CNN it was inadvertently forwarded to the prankster's address.

In a statement to CNN, the prankster explained why he does this: "The original prank's intention was to meet hypocrisy and cronyism with levity and a soupçon of embarrassment, instead of giving into the well worn grooves of anger and frustration. There's a dash of modern-day surrealism creeping in at times, and this is evolving the more friends I make in the US."

Kushner has been criticized in the past for initially not disclosing more than 100 contacts with foreign leaders including those from Russia, as well as ownership of a multimillion dollar tech company with links to Goldman Sachs and businessmen Peter Thiel and George Soros. Kushner was also one of three top campaign officials or surrogates who failed to disclose a June 2016 meeting with a woman billed as being with the Russian government and having incriminating information on Hillary Clinton.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/politi...nce/index.html