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The House Oversight and Reform Committee plans to relaunch the efforts of the new Congress to examine the use of private e-mails by the White House, according to reports that Ivanka Trump has used her personal account for much of the year 2017 to exchange messages with cabinet officials, employees government employees.
The next Democratic Chair of the committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, plans to redouble efforts to review private emails next year after the Republican – controlled group forsake its investigation into the issue when it 's time for it. A separate controversy erupted last year, according to a Cummings assistant. .
"We plan to continue our investigation of the Federal Records and the Presidential Records Act," said the assistant on Tuesday. "We want to know if she complied with the law."
US Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs President Ron Johnson told CNN on Tuesday that he was "concerned" about Ivanka Trump's use of his private e-mails – and that "it's not going to be easy." he planned to look into the situation.
"We take this very seriously," said Johnson, a harsh critic of the use of Hillary Clinton's email, and used his committee to investigate the Clinton affair at the Congress. "The federal archives fall within the purview of my committee and we will analyze exactly what happened here."
Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, would not say whether his committee would hold hearings on the issue or follow up letters to Trump, but said, "We will certainly follow up on this case."
In 2017, the chairman of the committee, Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, and Cummings, the most Democratic of the committee, sent a letter to White House lawyer Don McGahn, saying that, following reports that e-mail abuse state, the committee "has to use its monitoring and investigation resources to prevent and discourage the misuse of private forms of written communication."
But most of the committee's questions have remained unanswered by the White House.
The White House did not immediately comment on Ivanka Trump's e-mail practices, but her lawyer said the use of e-mail was used "almost always for logistics and planning regarding her family".
In a letter sent Tuesday to the judicial and oversight committees of the House, the group calls for a congressional inquiry into the issue, which it calls a "flagrant override of the law."
The letter states that "parallels between Ms. Trump's conduct and that of Clinton's Secretary are inevitable" and that an investigation is needed to determine whether the documents were properly collected, whether there was a violation cybersecurity and if classified documents are involved or if rules are followed. were broken.
Johnson, however, said that Ivanka Trump's situation does not seem to be as problematic, in his view, as the Clinton controversy.
"I do not think the comparisons between Hillary Clinton and Ivanka Trump are comparable at all," declaring that a private mail server had been set up in the Clinton case and claiming that the use Ivanka Trump's messaging seemed to be mainly during the transition period, although he acknowledged that he needed more information.
Johnson also said, "In today 's world, we must recognize the fact that people are human beings, private citizens and that they will receive a private email".
When asked if it meant that he was giving a pass to Trump's daughter, he insisted that it was not.
"I'm worried, that's why I've expressed my concern," Johnson said. "We told everyone on the way back that you had to follow those record laws, I'm going to watch that, we're taking it seriously."
This story has been updated to include additional comments from legislators and the American Oversight monitoring group.
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