During Tuesday’s Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace used reports of Ivanka Trump using a personal e-mail account to promote a story by The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake highlighting a long list of scandals and conflicts of interest involving one or more members of the Trump family.
Wallace and her panel discussed some of these scandals, including Kellyanne Conway selling Ivanka Trump’s dresses on TV and Donald Trump Jr. allegedly lying to the FBI. Wallace quoted former FBI Director James Comey, who said “they were like a mob family.”
MoveOn.org's Karine Jean-Pierre agreed: “They really are a mob family. They basically took what they were doing in the business, the Trump Organization, and brought it to the White House and didn’t care at all with what the rules were and what they can and cannot do.
Wallace gleefully introduced the segment by pointing out that “Ivanka Trump’s personal e-mail scandal isn’t the first....humiliating act of hypocrisy to take place in the Trump White House.” She then began reading an excerpt from Blake’s piece titled “Ivanka Trump’s e-mails, and the many things Trump attacked Obama and Clinton for and then did.” Wallace made sure to point out that “the article, needless to say, is very, very long.”
According to Jean-Pierre: “This family, the Trumps, they feel like they’re above the law.” Her statement came across as quite ironic considering that the company she works for, moveon.org, was founded for the express purpose of encouraging the United States Congress to “move on” from the sex scandals involving President Bill Clinton; who committed perjury by lying under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In other words, the philosophy of MoveOn.org was that President Clinton should be “above the law” because he was their guy.
The labeling of the Trump family as a “mob family” comes as the latest of many attacks on the First Family. Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared them to the Romanovs, while a recent New York Times piece about Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, asked: “But Are They Good For the Jews?”
It’s great to see the media so passionate about investigating inappropriate use of personal e-mail for government business. If only they had the same passion for investigating the “bogus” Clinton e-mail scandal.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Tuesday’s edition of Deadline: White House is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Deadline: White House
11/20/18
4:39 p.m. Eastern
NICOLLE WALLACE: Ivanka Trump’s personal e-mail scandal isn’t the first humiliating, humiliating act of hypocrisy to take place in the Trump White House. It’s not even this administration’s first scandal over a private e-mail server. Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, the one who’s in charge of Middle East last…Middle East peace, last year came under fire for the very same thing and the President himself, just recently made headlines as we’ve been discussing for using a personal phone to discuss government business, with the Chinese and the Russians listening in. For an administration that ran and won on the refrain, “lock her up,” the litany of potential security breaches isn’t laughable; it’s a sign of real incompetence. As Aaron Blake writes in the Washington Post, “If this was such an enormous betrayal of the public trust for Clinton, how was it not a massive point of emphasis for the Trump White House?” Aaron Blake wrote that line in a piece entitled “Ivanka Trump’s emails, and the many things Trump attacked Obama and Clinton for and then did.” The article, needless to say, is very, very long. This is, you know, for a White House that does such a volume business of scandal and outrage, this, to me, is sort of the low-hanging fruit, the kind of stuff they could have avoided. Hey, we ran and won by screaming “lock her up,” maybe, just maybe if we do one thing right, it should be not using personal e-mail.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, I think this family, the Trumps, they feel like they’re above the law. They feel like the law does not apply to them. And you see this in every kind of scenario that comes up about this family. Whether it’s profiting off of the White House. Let’s not forget that Ivanka Trump got trademarks because of her relationships, right, in the White House. Because she’s a senior adviser and for her shoes.
WALLACE: Right, Kellyanne Conway sold her dresses on TV.
JEAN-PIERRE: Exactly, it just goes on and on and on. And we have Don Jr. may have lied to both the FBI and Congress I mean, it goes on and then Eric, Eric Trump flies across the country trying…making deals and we have to pay for his Secret Service, Service there, the Secret Service protection yeah so it just goes on with this White House. It just doesn’t stop and I think that…
WALLACE: It’s like what Comey…Comey said they were like a mob family.
JEAN-PIERRE: They really are a mob family they basically took what they were doing in the business, the Trump Organization, and brought it to the White House and didn’t care at all with what the rules were, and what they can and cannot do. And now it is humiliating. It is embarrassing for them. And especially after running on e-mails, e-mails, e-mails, secure, unsecure e-mails and the misuse of e-mails.
