Cummings says Ivanka Trump not preserving all official communications

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Thursday that White House aide Ivanka Trump has not complied with federal laws requiring her to preserve all official email communications.

Cummings said in a letter to the White House counsel that Trump’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told the committee last year that emails are not preserved if Trump did not respond to them. The Maryland Democrat said that is an apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

{mosads}Trump used a private email account to discuss business from the White House, sending hundreds of emails about her official business and schedule to aides, Cabinet officials and personal assistants, The Washington Post reported in November.

Shortly after winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections, a Democratic aide told The Hill that the Oversight and Reform Committee planned to look into Trump’s email use of a personal email account.

The law, Cummings wrote in Thursday’s letter, “requires that a covered employee forward ‘a complete copy of the Presidential or Vice Presidential record to an official electronic messaging account of the President, Vice President or covered employee not later than 20 days after the original creation or transmission of the Presidential or Vice Presidential record.’ ”

He called on White House counsel Pat Cipollone to identify how many emails to and from Trump’s personal email account referred to or related to official business, and to certify if and how each of those emails was preserved and archived, as well as whether they contained sensitive or classified information.

Cummings also said the White House should provide a detailed description of the electronic system it uses to archive email and other electronic records.

In the same letter, Cummings said the committee has learned senior White House adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, has conducted official government business using the encrypted message service WhatsApp.