And Hillary Clinton has something to say about it
Words by Jadie Troy-Pryde
It's hard to think back to a time when the President of the United States didn't discuss foreign policy on Twitter. While Barack Obama spent eight years using the social media platform to promote peace and offer up dad jokes, Donald Trump antagonises North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un by calling him 'rocket man'.
But stretch your memory back to this time last year, before covfefe, and before we realised just how small Donald Trump's hands are. He was battling it out with Hillary Clinton for the most powerful seat in the US, and throwing everything he could at his Democrat opponent - included kicking up a huge storm about Hillary's use of a private email server while secretary of state. She was subjected to chants of 'Lock her up!' at Trump rallies, scrutinised by peers and the press, and thoroughly investigated by the FBI.
However, in a cyclical and almost karmic turn of events, Donald is now facing a private emails scandal of his own.
According to a report in the New York Times, at least six members of Trump's administration have been using private emails accounts for official White House business.
Those involved include Trump's eldest daughter, and Assistant to the President, Ivanka Trump, as well as her aides Gary Cohn and Stephen Miller. Furthermore, Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, admitted to his lawyer that he had used private emails earlier on this year. Former staff members Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus were also named.
While they are not believed to have broken the law, it's ironic that most of Trump's presidential campaign was based on criticising Hillary's use of private emails. Many have deduced that the handling of the case by former FBI director James Comey was a huge reason behind Hillary's loss last year.
She spoke about the current email scandal, telling Sirius XM radio: 'The hypocrisy of this administration, who knew there was no real scandal, who knew that there was no basis for all their hyperventilating.
'We’re finding with the latest revelations – they didn’t mean any of it. It’s just the height of hypocrisy.
'It is something that if they were sincere about I think you’d have Republican members of Congress calling for an investigation. I haven’t heard that yet.'
Kushner's lawyer has said the emails usually included 'forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal, rather than his White House, address.'
However, the outcome of the revelation is unclear. Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight and a former senior counsel at the Department of State told Newsweek: 'Yet again we see that there’s one rule for the Trump family and another for everyone else.
'It’s simply breathtaking that both Ivanka and Jared Kushner would conduct government [work] on a personal email account after running a campaign centred on that very issue.
'The fact that they would brazenly ignore rules governing email use raises even more questions about their judgement and fitness to hold positions in the White House.'