Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) came out in defense of Ivanka Trump on Tuesday, saying that her reported use of a personal email account while in the White House is nothing like Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server while serving as secretary of State.
“There are over 30,000 BleachBit reasons why the Hillary Clinton email scandal isn’t even close to the Ivanka email issue,” tweeted Meadows, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
A number of Clinton’s personal emails were destroyed after The New York Times reported her use of a private server while secretary of State.
Republicans have hammered Clinton and her allies for her use of the server as well as her conduct during the resulting investigation.
The Trump administration’s critics have compared the GOP’s outrage over Clinton’s conduct to its members’ muted reactions to reports that Trump used a private email account while in the White House.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump may have violated federal records rules by sending emails to government officials from her personal account in 2017.
On Tuesday, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said they were planning to investigate whether Trump’s use of the private account violated federal law.
A spokesperson for Trump’s attorney, Peter Mirijanian, told the Post that she “sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family.”
“Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted,” he added.
Mirijanian also said that Trump’s emails have been forwarded to her official government account in order to comply with the federal records law.