By Matt Osborne
Unless
you were in a coma during 2016, you will remember that the entire presidential
race was about Hillary Clinton’s emails, or Democratic Party emails, or Clinton
team emails, all the time.
The
topic of government email regulations burned up every last molecule of media
oxygen and directly led to the election of Donald Trump, who spent more than a
year talking endlessly about Clinton’s private email server.
His
rally crowds are still chanting “lock her up” to this very day.
So there is just no excuse for this:
Ivanka
Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials
and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of
federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House
examination of her correspondence.
White
House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when
reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a
public records lawsuit.
That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.
I will throw in my hot take anyway and suggest that these two stories — the one about Ivanka doing government business on a private email server and the special counsel investigation — have every potential of converging into one story, a kind of news singularity.
“She
was the worst offender in the White House,” said a former senior U.S.
government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe
internal dynamics.
Get
that? Ivanka is the worst email offender in the Trump administration, which is
to say the Trump crime family and its staff. Which is hard to do.
Without
a doubt, Mueller already has many thousands of emails from the Trump
Organization, before and after the election.
That is what we would expect from an investigation into allegations of ongoing crimes, e.g. conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
That is what we would expect from an investigation into allegations of ongoing crimes, e.g. conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Meanwhile,
we’ve heard lots of stories recently about Donald shambling through the White
House in a catastrophic mood.
As a result, pundits have speculated that Don Jr. is about to get hit with an indictment.
Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting AG has perhaps given him some new insight into Mueller’s case, prompting certain angry tweets, they say.
As a result, pundits have speculated that Don Jr. is about to get hit with an indictment.
Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting AG has perhaps given him some new insight into Mueller’s case, prompting certain angry tweets, they say.
All
of which is true.
But here’s a thought: what if Trump is having a nervous breakdown because his favorite daughter, “the worst offender” of government email regulations in his administration, is already named in a grand jury indictment, and facing questions before a House committee come January?
But here’s a thought: what if Trump is having a nervous breakdown because his favorite daughter, “the worst offender” of government email regulations in his administration, is already named in a grand jury indictment, and facing questions before a House committee come January?
Just
a happy thought.