The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee plans to revive efforts in the new Congress to look into the White House's use of private emails amid reports that Ivanka Trump used her personal account through much of 2017 to trade messages with Cabinet officials, White House aides and other government employees.
The likely incoming Democratic chairman of the committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, plans to renew efforts to look into private emails next year after the Republican-controlled panel dropped its investigation into the matter when a separate controversy arose last year, according to a Cummings aide.
"We plan to continue our Federal Records Act and Presidential Records Act investigation," the aide said Tuesday. "We want to know if she complied with the law."
In 2017, then-committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, and Cummings, the committee's top Democrat, sent a letter to then-White House counsel Don McGahn saying that in the wake of reports of email misuse, the committee "has aimed to use its oversight and investigative resources to prevent and deter misuse of private forms of written communication."
But many of the committee's questions have so far gone unanswered by the White House.
The Washington Post reported Monday the White House conducted an investigation into Trump's email usage and that she used her personal email address for much of 2017.
According to emails released by the watchdog group, American Oversight, Trump used her personal account to email Cabinet officials, White House aides and assistants. The Presidential Records Act requires all official White House communications and records be preserved.
The White House did not immediately comment on Ivanka Trump's email practices, but her attorney said the use of the email was used "almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family."
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