Donald Trump's 2018 defense of his older daughter may incriminate him in his latest scandals over the National Archives recovering official documents from Mar-a-Lago and flushed papers allegedly clogging the White House sewer pipes when he was president.
In 2018, after it was revealed White House advisor Ivanka Trump used private email to conduct official government business, her father was asked how that differed from Hillary Clinton's private email server, which was a major Trump talking point in the 2016 election.
Trump essentially offered three defenses, that Ivanka's emails did not include classified information, that there was no attempt to hide the information, and that there was no destruction of documents.
“They weren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't not deleted like Hillary Clinton...she wasn’t doing anything to hide her emails. I looked at it just very briefly today and the presidential records, they are all in presidential records, there was no hiding, there was no deleting like Hillary Clinton did," Trump argued. "There was no deletion, no nothing. What it is, is a false story."
It is not illegal for White House officials to use a personal email address as long as the messages are archived and don't contain classified information.
But Trump's 3-prong defense may incriminate him now.
On the point of classification, The Washington Post reports the National Archives asked the Department of Justice to investigate documents found at Mar-a-Lago, which may include classified information.
"The referral from the National Archives came amid recent revelations that officials recovered 15 boxes of materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that were not handed back in to the government as they should have been, and that Trump had turned over other White House records that had been torn up," The Washington Post reported. "Archives officials suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents — including those that might be considered classified — and reached out to the Justice Department, the people familiar with the matter said."
The second of the defenses of Ivanka, that there was no attempt to conceal the information and that there was no destruction of documents, appears to be an indictment of the report Trump flushed documents down the drain.
"While President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper, Maggie Haberman scoops in her forthcoming book, Confidence Man. Why it matters: The revelation by Haberman, whose coverage as a New York Times White House correspondent was followed obsessively by Trump, adds a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents," Axios reported.
Trump has denied both new reports, claiming they are "fake news."
Trump on one of his rants about Hillary Clinton\u2019s email and her practices around classified information. But now, you know, toilets.pic.twitter.com/ScFa8Bc5k0— Tim O'Brien (@Tim O'Brien) 1644505572
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