I’m not kidding.
“Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.”
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump lawyer Abbe Lowell, said something similar in a statement following the Post story. (Again, bolding is mine.)
“While transitioning into government, until the White House provided her the same guidance they had to others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her private account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” Mirijanian said.
How. Is. That. Possible.
How could Ivanka Trump have not known — even prior to the White House providing her “guidance” — that using a private email account to conduct official business was a giant no-no?
Whether you buy that explanation from Clinton is actually beside the point. The point is this: It is literally impossible to believe, after everything that transpired during the 2016 campaign regarding Clinton’s use of a private email to conduct government business, that Ivanka Trump was simply unaware that what she was doing wasn’t allowed. It’s just not possible.
Team Ivanka was quick to note that the two situations weren’t — and aren’t — exactly the same. Again, Mirijanian:
“To address misinformation being peddled about Ms. Trump’s personal email, she did not create a private server in her house or office, there was never classified information transmitted, the account was never transferred or housed at Trump Organization, no emails were ever deleted, and the emails have been retained in the official account in conformity with records preservation laws and rules.”
Which, OK. Clinton did delete a large chunk of the emails she sent from her private account after someone working for her did a broad canvas of all the emails she had sent and determined that they were entirely personal and therefore could be deleted without sharing them with investigators. (Roughly 50% of the emails on Clinton’s private server were deleted, while 44% were turned over to investigators.)
And sure, there are — at least on the surface — some specific differences between what Clinton did and what Ivanka did. But man, in the big picture it’s pretty damn similar.
The Mirijanian statement misses the point. It’s stretched credulity well beyond snapping to think that Ivanka was simply blissfully unaware that what she was doing in using her private email account was totally on the up and up. No sentient being — and certainly not one working at the top levels of government who also happens to be the eldest daughter of the President of the United States — could have lived through the 2016 campaign and not understood this basic equation: Private emails for government business = bad.
It remains to be seen whether what Ivanka Trump did merits an official investigation — although I strongly suspect the Democratic House will be taking a hard look come January. But what is quite clear in all of this is that Ivanka absolutely had to have known better.
Source : Nbcnewyork
