This week in Donald Trump's conflicts of interest: Javanka's private email scandal

There have been more charter jet controversies and Russia connections, as well as the ongoing Kushner email scandal

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published October 7, 2017 6:30AM (EDT)

 (Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Shutterstock/Salon)
(Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Shutterstock/Salon)

This week has seen the thickening of proverbial plots involving Trump administration officials and Trump businesses alike. Let's dive in!

Two previously unreported contacts between Russians and Trump's attorneys and business associates have been revealed.

A new twist to the Trump-Russia scandal was provided to congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller III, according to the Washington Post. On one occasion in late 2015, Trump attorney Michael Cohen fielded a request from a Russian billionaire's company for a residential project in Moscow. On the other occasion, Cohen and a business associate corresponded shortly before the 2016 Republican National Convention about Cohen possibly traveling to Russia to attend an economic conference that would include President Vladimir Putin. While neither plan came to fruition, they both underscore how Trump had maintained contact with powerful Russians for business purposes even while he was in the process of running for president.

Shady use of charter planes is becoming a chronic problem for Team Trump.

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price may have resigned due to his improper use of government charter jets, but that doesn't mean the Trump administration is free from that particular controversy. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings of Maryland is requesting documentation for all of the noncommercial flights Kellyanne Conway has taken as counselor to the president — some of which were taken with Price. It has also come out that Secretary of Energy Rick Perry used private charter jets for official business one day before Price resigned in disgrace, while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's use of $811,000 in military flights was "poorly justified" despite having technically been legal.

Should Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump start hearing chants of "lock them up"?

It may seem cruel to taunt people with the prospect of prison time, but it would be particularly fitting for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump given that their father-in-law/father used that slogan against Hillary Clinton throughout the 2016 presidential election. Of course, it is common knowledge now that they used private email addresses despite being part of a presidential campaign that was partly won because of email-related scandals.

As Politico revealed this week, however, a third email address that had previously gone unreported has been noticed:

Hundreds of emails have been sent since January from White House addresses to accounts on the Kushner family domain, these people said. Many of those emails went not to Kushner’s or Ivanka Trump’s personal addresses but to an account they both had access to and shared with their personal household staff for family scheduling.

 


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Donald Trump Ivanka Trump Jared Kushner Michael Cohen Trump Organization