The House Oversight Committee voted along party lines Thursday to allow subpoenas for personal emails and texts for official business by top White House aides, including Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Fox News informed.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the panel, stated that the committee has acquired “direct evidence” that the President’s daughter, Kushner and other top aides were using personal accounts for official business, thus violating the federal law and White House policy.
“What we do not yet know is why these White House officials were attempting to conceal these communications,” Cummings said, adding that the White House has refused to produce a single piece of paper this year in response to the investigation.
Cummings stated that Ivanka Trump has used private email accounts for official business while her husband has used the messaging app WhatsApp. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon used private accounts for personal business as well, Cummings claimed.
Republicans called the subpoenas unnecessary and stated that Ivanka Trump and her husband are working together with the committee. The subpoenas were adopted with 23 voted for and 16 against. Cummings also mentioned Thursday that the House Oversight Committee would postpone a vote on whether to recommend that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway be held in contempt of Congress, as talks proceeded with the Trump administration.
The committee’s investigation was launched after Ivanka Trump last year dismissed any comparison to the use of private email by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which incited an FBI probe and inspired the “Lock her up!” chant at Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies.
While she was working as a U.S. diplomat, from 2009 to 2013, Clinton sent thousdands of emails using a private server set up at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. The FBI discovered classified information in some of the emails that were sent or received on the nongovernment system; however, the federal authorities did not want to press any charges against Clinton.
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