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Ivanka Trump faces congressional investigation over emails

Ivanka's father, President Trump, said her email use was nothing like Hillary Clinton's.

Ivanka's father, President Trump, said her email use was nothing like Hillary Clinton's. Photo: Getty

A Congressional committee will investigate Ivanka Trump following reports she repeatedly used a personal email account for government work.

A White House review of President Donald Trump’s daughter, and adviser, Ivanka Trump’s email found that she used her personal account up to 100 times last year to contact other Trump administration officials, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

Use of a personal account for government business potentially violates a law requiring preservation of all presidential records.

Mr Trump repeatedly criticised his 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton in  over her use of personal email and a private server while she was US secretary of state.

Representatives for US Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said a congressional panel will investigate White House communications once the Democrats take over the US House of Representatives in January.

“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,” his office said in a statement.

Mr Cummings, in a separate statement, said the White House has not complied with previous document requests.

The current House Oversight committee chairman, Republican Trey Gowdy, also asked the White House for documents and information related to Ivanka Trump’s use of private email in a letter on Tuesday.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but Mr Trump said his daughter’s use of her personal email account was different from Mrs Clinton’s.

For a little period of time, Ivanka did some emails. They weren’t classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren’t deleted like Hillary Clinton … She wasn’t doing anything to hide her emails.”

Mr Trump added that his daughter did not have a private server as Mrs Clinton did.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s ethics lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told the Washington Post the emails occurred before she was aware of government record-keeping regulations.

Mrs Clinton’s email practices as secretary of state prompted a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe in the run-up to the 2016 election that still draws ire from Mr Trump and calls from some of his supporters to “lock her up.”

The FBI concluded Mrs Clinton’s actions were extremely careless but did not recommend any charges be filed.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mr Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Mrs Clinton and former FBI director James Comey.

Don McGahn, the White House counsel at the time, reportedly rebuffed the request and wrote a memo to the President outlining dire consequences if he did order the prosecutions.

Mrs Clinton expressed regret for her decision to use a private server but said she violated no rules.

-with AAP

Topics: Ivanka Trump
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