On Monday, it was reported that Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of e-mails using a private e-mail address for official government business. As one might expect, people were incredulous, disbelieving that somehow, after the 2016 election, that Ivanka didn't know that that was against government regulations.
Monday night, Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) went on CNN to try to defend the Ivanka's actions, making the case that her use of a private email address was far different from Hillary's, and he was immediately shot down.
After guest Bakari Sellers explained how "lock her up" and "crooked Hillary" were cornerstones of President Donald Trump's campaign based on Clinton's own use of private email, Santorum mused that the two scenarios are in no way similar.
“To sort of ignore the obvious differences here is a little hypocritical. Hillary Clinton went out and established her own server in full knowledge that what she was doing was wrong,” Santorum said. Clinton "was a political person with political aspirations who was doing things in her own interest as a political figure."
Santorum falsely claimed Ms. Trump "is not a political figure" (she's a senior White House advisor), and that "she was no the Secretary of State dealing with a wide variety of very sensitive and classified information, even information that's not classified but sensitive in dealing with our allies and foes."
Chris Cuomo was not having it:
"She's a senior advisor, Hillary didn't set up the server, it was set up by her husband before, and Comey had to go back and say that the problem wasn't that she was trafficking in classified information."
Sellers took on Santorum as well:
"No, it's not different. What's the difference between, if Hillary was using her own homebrewed server versus Ivanka Trump using Yahoo, AOL or Gmail, we need to know what that is, we need to figure out if she was compromised or not, she was communicating with high-level cabinet officials."
Watch the full exchange below:
Santorum's attempt to explain away Ivanka's use of private email did not go well on Twitter either.
Santorum's analysis, according to Twitter, is "pointless."
"Ivanka is focused on family leave policy," Santorum said. “There’s a big difference between what Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, was doing and what Ivanka Trump is accused of.”
Cuomo pointed out that Ms. Trump is a senior advisor to the president and that Clinton's server had been set up by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, noting that classified information was never knowingly trafficked through Clinton's personal email.
Sellers said if government officials are going to use private email accounts, we "should know about it," but the hypocrisy from the right is ridiculous. Trump's children "have security clearances," Sellers said, "and they should know that having a private email server is a violation of the law."
"So to say that Ivanka Trump doesn't know or is ignorant of policy, the perfect example is Hillary Clinton," Sellars said, adding that claiming Ms. Trump "didn't know" is "intellectually dishonest."
When pressed on whether there should be an investigation, Santorum said no, unless there is evidence of classified or sensitive information being shared.
Santorum then falsely claimed this was the case with Clinton.
Cuomo concluded by saying that during the campaign, Republicans "went wild" with Clinton's emails, adding that it was "blown way out of proportion" as a way to go after Clinton.
The Washington Post reported Monday night that Ms. Trump had been using a personal email account for handling government business, which may be a violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires all communications from White House officials to be preserved.
Two former White House officials- former White House legislative affairs director Marc Short and former communications director Anthony Scaramucci - said on Monday that Ms. Trump's use of a private email server for government business was entirely hypocritical.
"Well, look, Alisyn, it's hypocritical and certainly it looks bad, and I'm sure the media will have a field day with it today," Short told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on New Day.
"I accept that today's story is an ironic one and shows hypocrisy and is a mistake, and the administration shouldn't have had government emails going to private emails servers," he said, adding that "all of the emails have been handed back over to the federal government."
"Well, certainly I think it's hypocritical. I think even Ivanka, if she was interviewed about, she'd have to say it was a mistake. You can't do that in that position," Scaramucci told Camerota.
"There had to be a reason why she was doing that. The same thing I would say about Secretary Clinton," he added. "I think it's a serious matter. I'm not making light of it."
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
