Cummings Calls on Gowdy to Obtain Copies of Kushner Emails That Violated Federal Law; Classification Review of Work Emails in Private Account

Dec 22, 2017
Press Release
Cummings Presses Gowdy to Apply Same Standard He Applied to Clinton Emails

Washington, D.C. (Dec. 22, 2017)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter asking Chairman Trey Gowdy to take two key steps in the Committee’s joint investigation into whether White House officials—and Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner in particular—are complying with the Presidential Records Act, which prohibits White House employees from emailing from a private account unless employees copy their official account or forward emails within 20 days.

 

First, Cummings asked that the Committee obtain copies of all emails that Mr. Kushner sent or received in violation of federal law.  Second, he requested that Gowdy join him in asking Mr. Kushner to submit emails he sent or received on his personal account to an independent Inspector General to determine whether they include any classified or sensitive information. 

 

“You took similar steps with respect to Secretary Clinton’s emails while you were Chairman of the Benghazi Select Committee, and the Committee should not apply a different standard here just because Donald Trump is now President and Mr. Kushner is his son-in-law,” Cummings wrote.

 

During the Benghazi investigation, Gowdy sought and obtained emails relating to Benghazi that were sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton using her non-official email account.  Cummings also called for those emails to be made public at the time.

 

“In this case, we would not be going that far,” Cummings wrote. “Instead of requesting copies of all emails Mr. Kushner sent or received from his personal account, we would be requesting only those that violated federal law.”

 

Cummings also explained that Gowdy championed the idea of an independent third party to review Secretary Clinton’s emails, and he requested that she provide the server that contained her emails to the Inspector General for the State Department to act as “a neutral, detached and independent third-party” to conduct an “immediate inspection and review.”

 

“I ask that you apply the same standard now,” Cummings wrote. “I request that you join me in asking Mr. Kushner to provide his emails to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community to conduct a similar review to determine whether any emails he sent or received—and that may still reside in his email account—include classified or other sensitive information.  As we saw in the Benghazi investigation, emails in Mr. Kushner’s possession could include classified information even if they are not marked as such.”

 

Click here to read today’s letter.

 

115th Congress