Jared Kushner: Trump's son-in-law uses WhatsApp and personal email for official White House business, attorney says

Democratic congressman claims White House 'obstructing inquiry'

Jared Kushner uses private messaging apps and personal email to communicate about official Trump administration matters with foreign leaders – a violation of a laws governing White House records - a congressional committee has been told.

Elijah Cummings, the Democratic congressman who heads the House of Representative’s oversight committee, said the lawyer of the president’s son-in-law. had made the revelation in December. He said the lawyer had not told congress whether the information Mr Kushner shared was classified.

Reuters said the congressman also said the lawyer told his committee that Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter and Mr Kushner's wife, continued to receive emails related to official business on a personal email account.

He said he had made the request in a letter to White House lawyer, Pat Cipollone.

In the letter, which Reuters said it had seen, Mr Cummings said the law governing presidential records prohibited senior White House officials, including the president and vice president, from using non-official electronic messaging accounts

The use of private emails for official business became a huge controversy during the 2016 presidential election campaign after it emerged Hillary Clinton had used a personal email server installed at her home in upstate New York when she was secretary of state.

An investigation by the FBI, at that time headed by James Comey, concluded that no prosecutor would have brought charges against her.

However, he did say Ms Clinton had been being “extremely careless” in using a private email address located at her home in Chappaqua. Ms Clinton also said she had deleted 30,000 emails, something that was seized on my Mr Trump and his supporters.

Mr Cummings said when the committee was under Republican control in March 2017, it had started investigating whether White House officials were using personal email and messaging accounts to conduct official business.

He said that Mr Trump's White House had so far failed to provide documents and information and was “obstructing” his committee’s efforts to investigate possible violations of White House policy and the presidential records law.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.