WASHINGTON—A House committee authorized issuing subpoenas to the White House for records and documents tied to the use of private texts and emails for official business by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and other officials.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, accused Democrats on the panel of seeking a way Thursday to rebound from the “total bust” of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s House testimony the previous day. All 23 Democrats on the committee voted in favour of issuing the subpoenas, and all 16 Republicans opposed the action.

The Oversight subpoenas also will demand all communications discussing whether the private messages contain classified information, including those sent through encrypted applications such as WhatsApp.

“The White House has refused to produce even a single document,” said Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings of Maryland, referring to committee requests for documents. Cummings said the use of such private communication channels for official business is in violation of the Presidential Record Act of 1978.

“It is the law,” Cummings said. “It makes clear that White House records belong to the public, not the president.”

Democrats accused Republicans of a double standard for defending the president’s family after going after Democrat Hillary Clinton so aggressively for her use of a private email server for official communications when she was secretary of State. Donald Trump frequently led campaign crowds in chants of “lock her up” in his winning 2016 campaign against Clinton.

There was no immediate comment from the White House. Ivanka Trump is President Trump’s daughter, Kushner is her husband and both are White House advisers.

Cummings didn’t say when the committee will issue the subpoenas. Jordan called the effort an attempt by Democrats to open a new front in attacking the president after Mueller’s testimony.

“The Democrats are no closer to their goal of impeaching the president —in fact, I think they are farther away,” Jordan said. “But they don’t waste any time. Now, they’re going to go after the emails of the first family in an attempt to create the appearance of some type of controversy.”

Jordan’s declaration prompted more angry exchanges, with freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan asking why Republicans were trying to protect the president’s family members.

The specific focus of the subpoena is Kushner’s use of WhatsApp to communicate with foreign individuals. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe David Lowell, has disputed how Cummings described Lowell’s December meeting with Oversight panel leaders.

Lowell said in a letter to the committee earlier this year that he told the leaders he didn’t know any details about Kushner’s use of a private communications application.

In addition, Cummings said Thursday that Ivanka Trump’s attorney acknowledged that she has received emails about official business via her personal email account —and hadn’t forwarded all of them to her official account within 20 days as required by the law. Republicans noted that the president’s daughter has since sought to correct that.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: