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Trump Says Ivanka's Personal Email Had No Classified Information

Trump Says Ivanka's Personal Email Had No Classified Information

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump downplayed reports that his daughter, Ivanka Trump, used personal email for government business, saying she the emails didn’t contain classified information and haven’t been deleted.

Trump, speaking to reporters as he left the White House to spend Thanksgiving in Florida, said his daughter didn’t do anything to hide her emails and called recent reports about the private email use “fake news.”

“Ivanka can handle herself,” Trump said. “No deletion whatsoever.”

The Washington Post reported that Ivanka Trump, a senior White House official, sent hundreds of emails -- some to government officials -- on a private account. Her use of the private email was uncovered when administration officials examined her correspondence as part of a response to a public records court case, according to the Post. Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings said Tuesday that the House Oversight Committee plans to investigate the matter.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Trump’s lawyer Abbe Lowell, said in a statement Monday that Ivanka Trump used the private email “almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign--and in the two years since--the president repeatedly attacked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email system while she served in government.

The president dubbed Clinton “Crooked Hillary” and led his followers in chants of “lock her up” at campaign rallies in which he often discussed Clinton’s email use.

Now, Democrats and good-governance groups are calling for an investigation of the president’s eldest daughter for her email practices. According to the Presidential Records Act, all official White House communications must be preserved. Ivanka Trump’s use of a private email account violates that law, said Austin Evers, executive director of the liberal watchdog group American Oversight.

“The president’s family is not above the law, and there are serious questions that Congress should immediately investigate,” Evers, whose group filed record requests that led to the discovery of the private email account, said in a statement. “Did Ivanka Trump turn over all of her emails for preservation as required by law? Was she sending classified information over a private system?”

The Post reported that Ivanka Trump relied on her personal attorneys to review her private emails and determine which ones were government records that needed to be retained. Clinton did the same, and the Trump campaign slammed her repeatedly for it.

Mirijanian rejected comparisons between Ivanka Trump and Hillary Clinton, saying one key difference is that the president’s daughter didn’t send classified information using private email.

--With assistance from Justin Sink.

To contact the reporters on this story: Toluse Olorunnipa in Washington at tolorunnipa@bloomberg.net;Alyza Sebenius in Washington at asebenius@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning, Joshua Gallu

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