The House Oversight Committee is planning next year to investigate Ivanka Trump’s use of private email to conduct government business, according to a Democratic aide.
“We plan to continue our investigation of the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act, and we want to know if Ivanka complied with the law,” the staffer told the Washington Examiner. Democrats will take over the panel and the entire House in the new Congress when it convenes in January.
The suggestion of an investigation came after American Oversight, the liberal watchdog group whose disclosure requests brought Trump’s emails to light, called on lawmakers to look into the controversy given President Trump’s attacks on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal email server during their respective campaigns.
“Was Ivanka Trump sending classified information over a private email system? We asked Congress to investigate,” the organization tweeted Tuesday.
[Opinion: Ivanka’s emails are bad, but still not remotely comparable to Hillary’s]
Was Ivanka Trump sending classified information over a private email system? We asked Congress to investigate: https://t.co/M4j6O89OqF
— American Oversight (@weareoversight) November 20, 2018
The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump, a White House senior adviser and first daughter, used a Microsoft email account with a “ijkfamily.com” domain in 2017 to communicate hundreds of times with fellow administration aides, Cabinet officials, and others about government work, from scheduling to policy matters. The Presidential Records Act requires that all official White House correspondence be kept and archived for each administration.
But Peter Mirijanian, the spokesperson for Trump’s ethics lawyer Abbe Lowell, on Monday sought to downplay the appearance of any wrongdoing and any comparisons with Clinton.
“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” Mirijanian wrote in a statement.
“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,” Mirijanian added.
Representatives for the House Oversight Committee and prospective House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s inquiries about the possibility of a probe.
The GOP will keep control of the Senate in the new Congress, but there are signs Republicans are also worried about Trump’s email habits. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told CNN Tuesday that he is “concerned” about the news.
“We take this very seriously,” Johnson said. “Federal records is under my committee’s jurisdiction, and we will dig into exactly what has happened here.”
