KUSHNER IS THE GOP'S VERSION OF "HILLARY"

…Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump  at Donald J. Trump’s Inauguration

 

As with many issues, President Trump is not following through on his many campaign promises

 

I have a basic question for the son-in-law of our current president.

 

If the use of her private e-mail system is one of the keys to Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 election, why is Jared Kushner not required to resign as a Senior White House adviser for using a private email account to conduct official White House business?  Kushner’s personal attorney confirmed this over the weekend.

 

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  And Kushner used his private account through his first nine months in government service.  This was all the while the president was criticizing his opponent Hillary in the 2016 presidential election for her use of a private email account for government business. Kushner used this account to exchange news stories and the campaign’s reactions or updates with other administration officials.

 

This account was set up by Kushner and his wife, Ivanka, before Trump had won the White House.  Kushner was later named as a senior adviser to the president in January. But once in the White House, Kushner used this private account, especially when he was traveling while using his personal laptop.

 

A person who has reviewed the emails said many had been forwarded to his government account, and as originally with Hillary, none appeared to contain classified information.

 

It is uncanny how both Kushner and Clinton offered similar explanations when it was revealed that Hillary had set up a private email account as her exclusive means of email communication when she was the Secretary of State.  Clinton had also said, as has Kushner, that she opted for the private email “as a matter of convenience.” She also initially insisted that she never shared classified information on her private account or that she had tried to sidestep the federal law that requires that official government communications are preserved.

 

Trump repeatedly blasted Clinton during the 2016 campaign for her email practices, and he has continued to do so for these many months after defeating her in the race to the White House.

 

So, if it is basically a mirror of what went on with Hillary, why is it OK now for Kushner and other White House officials?

 

This is just another example of Trumps: “do as I say, not as I do” approach, and here are more glaring examples:

 

·       Trump said as president, he would not be out playing golf as did Obama.  He has already played golf way more times than President Obama ever did.

 

·       Trump was going to cut costs.  But his trips to his resorts on the weekends has already cost the government more than Obama’s trips had cost for his full two terms.

 

·       Trump said he wouldn’t use “Executive Orders” as did president Obama.  He has already by-passed Obama in issuing Executive Orders.

 

·       President Trump said he was going to do: “Infrastructure, Obamacare repeal, Tax Reform, NAFTA & Iran Agreement re-negotiation, start building the border Wall (that Mexico would pay for), all of this in his first months in office”.  None of these have been done. 

 

·       He has since shown a preference for Russia’s Vladimir Putin over our other allies in Europe, and now he’s going after NFL owners and players for their right as Americans to have peaceful protests.

 

Don’t you think it’s ironic that Trump had said during the campaign: “What the prosecutors should be looking at are Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails.”  And the irony is that he made this comment just hours after the news broke that special counsel Robert Mueller was going to use a grand jury to investigate the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.

 

When Trump’s son, Don Jr. faced questions about a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer during the campaign, after the Russians had offered him some possible incriminating information about Clinton.  The president just couldn’t keep his mouth shut as he said: “Hillary Clinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate & delete 33,000 emails but my son Don is being scorned by the Fake News Media.”  Trump had tweeted this in which his comment was in fact, the real “Fake News” about Hillary.

 

Clinton had mistakenly claimed that none of her emails contained classified information.  However, later an extensive FBI team found that a number of the emails did contain classified information and a few had inadvertently contained top-secret material.

But Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell declined to answer questions about how it was determined that none of the Kushner emails contained classified information.  All the lawyer said was: “A person who has reviewed the emails said several e-mails contained nothing more than links to news stories.”  So, apparently only a single individual, with ties to the current White House, has reviewed the e-mails.  The point is, Kushner is doing what Trump accused the Democratic candidate of during the 2016 campaign.

 

But Kushner isn’t alone.

 

Kushner’s use of a private account mirrors the trend of others within the Trump White House.  So, he is not alone in communicating official business over private channels.

 

Many senior White House officials in the administration regularly correspond with journalists about government business, and all on their personal cellphones & laptops.  This is as opposed to using their official White House lines. People familiar with his communications said former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and former senior adviser Stephen Bannon also used private email accounts, including in their exchanges with Kushner. It’s unclear if these officials forwarded their emails to their White House accounts, (as is the rule) said one White House official.

 

The attorney Lowell declined to specify if Kushner routinely forwarded all of his private emails to his government account.  Bannon could not be reached for comment Sunday and William Burck, the attorney for Priebus, declined to comment.

 

Republicans have criticized former Obama Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson for using a dummy account name — “Richard Windsor” — on an EPA government email account for some of her personal communications.  They also criticized Jonathan Silver, an Obama appointee to the Energy Department, when one of his emails showed him warning his subordinates amid a discussion of government business: “Don’t ever send an e-mail on a private email address. That makes them subpoena-able.”

 

The Federal Records Act requires government officials and agencies to create systems and practices so that they preserve all records, memos, correspondence and other documents that detail their government work.  This cannot be guaranteed when using a private e-mail system.

 

Private accounts can also open security risks if the service is lax on password security or doesn’t regularly patch its software with security covers.  This is a weaknesses that foreign hackers can exploit to gain access.

 

The “Goose & Gander” issue says Trump, his son-in-law and all those in the White House using private e-mail are as guilty as was Hillary, but that of course means nothing to “Mr. Do as I say, not as I do”, Trump”.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017