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At least four senior officials in President Trump's White House have active accounts on a private Republican National Committee (RNC) email system, according to a new report.
Counselor Kellyanne Conway, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, chief strategist and senior counselor Stephen Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner — Trump's son-in-law — all have rnchq.org email accounts, Newsweek reported Wednesday.
Trump repeatedly attacked 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last year for using a private email server during her tenure as secretary of State.
[...] Newsweek added the rnchq.org email system caused controversy during former President George W. Bush's administration.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) accused Bush White House staffers in 2007 of using the system to evade transparency.
The rnchq.org email system was involved in the loss of 22 million Bush administration emails, Newsweek reported, many from around the start of the Iraq War.
Former President Obama’s administration found the lost emails after private lawsuits were filed, it added.
Those messages are now in the National Archives, according to Newsweek, but remain under the national security shield and have not been seen by the public.
[Update:] Newsweek updated its story and is now reporting:
Since this story was published, the RNC has deleted the emails of Bannon, Kushner and Conway. RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney told Newsweek Wednesday night that the emails were set up only for distribution lists, “There is nothing wrong with having an RNC account if it is not used for any official government business,” he said. “In this case, the officials previously employed by the Trump campaign never had functional email accounts with the RNC. The RNC has various distribution lists to communicate with state parties or campaigns, and as a byproduct these contact groups are assigned RNCHQ.org addresses that only forward to external accounts at their respective organizations.”
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:23PM
You are absolutely correct.
However, how many people here really think that if these people have ongoing access to a non-audited email system that they won't abuse it at some point?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:34PM
Especially when its directly linked to a major political party. I almost feel that certain public officials should have all their communications monitored. We got it backwards, they shouldn't be using mass surveillance on the general population, they should be using it on government officials to make sure there aren't any of those nasty conflicts of interest. The public puts their trust in elected officials, yet it is apparently the easiest thing in the world for them to create policies that benefit their financial interests. As long as we're gong down the Orwellian route how about we at least try and make it work for the benefit of the general public?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:39PM
Privacy for the people.
Surveillance for the powerful.
Of course the practical effect of that is surveillance for nobody because the powerful can afford to circumvent surveillance.
But that's better than the current state of affairs.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Friday January 27 2017, @06:41AM
The arms race of the powerful circumventing surveillance and the increasingly powerful surveillance will doubtlessly be a boon to the economy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2017, @09:34PM
However, how many people here really think that if these people have ongoing access to a non-audited email system that they won't abuse it at some point?
Would this be the same people who equate having an RNC address with circumventing IT security and US law with a private server? Or other people?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 27 2017, @12:56AM
That's it.
This IS a partisan article. The author is attempting to equate a private server, and circumventing a multitude of laws, with having a private account on a (presumably) secure party server.
The legitimate concern voiced is that the party server might be used to avoid government oversight. So, the question is, whether these various officials are actually using @rnchq to conduct government business. I'll bet a small sum that they aren't stripping headers from secret documents so that they can send them through @rnchq. (No I don't have enough faith in any of them to wager any large sum of money on them.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @04:57PM
You can't so easily waive this away when the last time the Republicans were in the White House, they used this exact same service to conduct official business to circumvent the system. The Bush White House did the EXACT SAME THING that Republicans have been beating Clinton up for, including "losing" thousands upon thousands of emails conveniently at the time people started to look for them. Are you so confident in your assessment that they are using it properly, even after the fact that they had at least three undisclosed discussions with the Russian ambassador on the day that Obama announced new Russian sanctions?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 28 2017, @12:46AM
The Bush White House did the EXACT SAME THING that Republicans have been beating Clinton up for, including "losing" thousands upon thousands of emails conveniently at the time people started to look for them.
The RNC is not the Bush White House.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 27 2017, @12:51AM
So, wait a second.
Being elected to government office means that everyone must surrender access to all non-government electronic services? Close out g-mail, yahoo, microsoft offerings? Close their SoylentNews accounts? Really? I've changed my mind about running for office in 2020.