A request for in-depth information by Senator Ron Johnson and South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy over Ivanka Trump’s use of a private email account for government errands points to the fact that the GOP could be turning against the Trump family at large, according to The New York Times.
Both Johnson, who chairs the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and his GOP colleague Gowdy, who heads the House Oversight Committee, sent in a formal request for data on whether Ivanka had received any special training "under the Presidential Records Act.” Gowdy told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday that lawmakers should do due diligence in investigating the matter, adding that they are opposed to the president’s persistence in rejecting any wrongdoing by his daughter.
"I am concerned any time any president prejudges the outcome of an investigation. Congress has a responsibility to make sure that the records and the Presidential Records Act is complied with, and that's true no matter who the person is," he said, his approach echoed by many Twitter users:
The afore-mentioned move by the Republicans is sees as a worrisome sign with regard to the whole family:
"That you now have Republicans investigating members of the first family is an indication of the perils ahead" for the Trumps, said Tom Davis, the former House Republican from Virginia who was the chairman of the Oversight Committee from 2003 to 2006.
Ivanka Trump made headlines last week as it was revealed she had used a personal email account throughout 2017 to send arrays of messages to White House officials, after she had already been nominated to be a presidential aide. Her lawyer said in response that the personal account was mainly used for logistics and scheduling matters, and on top of that, the emails in question had arrived before she was given a formal training on the subject after being confirmed in her role.
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Representative Jamie Ruskin, who is on one of the investigative panels, told The Times:
“Politically speaking, this is the Achilles’ heel of the administration. They have turned the government of the United States into a moneymaking operation for the president and his family and close friends. That is the exact opposite of our constitutional design.”
The Ivanka issue is notably not the first one in the Democrats’ crosshairs, as the actions and business affairs of Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during the 2016 campaign, also being under close examination as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which the US president referred to on multiple occasions as a “witch hunt.”