Melania Trump used several private email accounts to conduct business as first lady, according to her former friend and senior adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.
Wolkoff claimed that Trump used private email accounts from the Trump Organization and from the MelaniaTrump.com domain along with several other messaging services while in the White House. The allegations were detailed in Wolkoff’s forthcoming tell-all book, which Trump’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham says is “full of mistruths and paranoia.”
“Melania and I both didn’t use White House emails,” Wolkoff said.
Wolkoff documented some of the conversations from after the inauguration that appear to contain official business, according to a report from the Washington Post.
Both Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and adviser, and her husband and fellow White House adviser Jared Kushner have been investigated for their use of private emails to conduct public business, as has Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Melania Trump is not a government employee, but a first lady’s use of private email still raises concerns. “If she is doing United States government business, she should be using the White House email,” said Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush.
The use of a private email account is allowed under the Presidential Records Act, but issues such as records preservation and compliance with subpoenas pose potential legal issues.
In addition, the discussion of classified information on an unauthorized account is illegal.
President Trump routinely condemned Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email server while she was secretary of state while they faced off in the 2016 election and after. Unlike Clinton, none of the members of the Trump family have been accused of sending classified materials in a private email.
