House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) demanded that the White House hand over “all communications” sent on private servers and messaging apps relating to work in a Monday letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.
The demand marks an expansion from earlier requests that Cummings has sent, which hewed to information about messages sent by certain White House officials.
The messages include those from presidential power duo Javanka. One half of the couple — Jared Kushner — has allegedly used encrypted messaging apps to communicate with foreign officials about official business.
Cummings set a July 10 deadline for the request, and noted the Trump Administration’s stonewalling of his earlier demands in his letter.
“The White House’s complete obstruction of the committee’s investigation for the past six months is an affront to our Constitutional system of government,” Cummings wrote.
He added that since sending an initial letter on the matter in December 2018, “you have not produced a single document, you have not provided any of the requested briefings, and you have not offered any timeline by which these requests will be fulfilled.”
Cummings cited the Presidential Records Act in his letter, saying that White House employees are restricted from “using a non-official electronic message account” for work-related communications.
The demand for information about Trump Administration officials’ use of private email and messaging servers strikes a particularly ironic note in part due to the Trump campaign’s focus on Hillary Clinton’s email retention practices during the 2016 presidential campaign.
House Republicans made similar requests of the Trump White House during the previous Congressional term regarding a number of high-ranking officials, including Ivanka Trump.
Read the letter here:
