When Donald Trump was running for president against Hillary Clinton, the biggest scandal from the Clinton campaign was about her emails — specifically, that Clinton had used a personal email server to send and receive emails (including some containing classified information) during her time in the State Department, rather than official government email.
The now-President and his party turned a “careless” (said the FBI) act into an overblown scandal. Clinton was investigated twice by the FBI and twice cleared of criminal behavior, though she received a stern lecture from former FBI Director James Comey. He also told a House Oversight and Government Reform panel that the agency’s investigation could not establish that she “acted with the necessary criminal intent” (though his decision to publicize the FBI investigation may have cost Clinton the election).
Donald Trump, however, said he believed Clinton’s use of personal email for official government business was such a significant violation that he made it a cornerstone of his loud and unrelenting campaign pitch to rabid followers: “Lock her up.”
Is he going to do the same to Ivanka?
It turns out the President’s daughter, who serves as a senior adviser to him, has been using her personal email for official government business.
Whoops.
Ivanka Trump pleaded ignorance, saying she just didn’t know the rules about personal email use — a story that’s a little tough to believe, given that during the campaign her father apparently considered himself an expert on the very issue of personal email use in the White House. (Her lawyer also denies that she sent or received classified material on her private email.)
It’s also another example of the President’s troubling nepotism habit. If his daughter had not been adequately briefed on the rules, she should not have been doing government business for her dad.
