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Comment by ericbarrett | Hacker News Reader

Top White House staff are widely reported to use WhatsApp, Telegram, and other private, non-archivable communications methods. This is illegal[0], of course, but as Congress has abdicated jurisdiction over the Office of the Executive they are not facing consequences.

[0] https://www.co-equal.org/guide-to-congressional-oversight/co...

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> Congress has abdicated jurisdiction over the Office of the Executive they are not facing consequences.

Haven’t they already done so earlier when the exact same issue came up during Hillary Clinton’s private email server affair?

The abdication to of power to the Executive has been going on longer than that. Personal IT device use has been too, things have only gotten worse since the Clinton email server debacle - which I did think was a big deal at the time, but in today's political landscape seems almost innocuous.

Right, but I mentioned Hillary Clinton email server not just as a general example of abdication of power to executive, but rather because it was pretty much about the same thing as we are discussing here. White House officials using non-official channels and apps for communication is wrong, but it was just as wrong when Hillary Clinton did it, and she didn’t face any consequences for that , or when these emails got missing instead of getting archived.

Supposedly it was only personal email and not official email that got deleted.

That's what she argued, but I don't think that if Trump officials claim the same, the media narrative and judicial system attitude will be "oh, okay, never mind then".

That politicians on both sides engage in all kinds of wrong doing is certainly not news to me. The interesting part here is rather the difference in what each side gets when they are caught on the exact same thing.

That is not supposed, given the outgoing and in-going email addressing that were routed. This is the nature of the controversy. Hard to prove, without a separate record.

I'd say she faced the consequence of not being elected President.

It's true she didn't face jail for multiple reasons (partially including the obvious unfairness of jailing only a former Sec. of State for what, at the time and before, appeared to be something like best practice for the upper echelons of the Executive), but the public appears to have passed judgment on the topic.

I don't think that the email controversy mattered very much for the 2016 election: I think many voters simply didn't like Clinton, and the email issue serve to support preexisting beliefs rather than swaying anyone. And yes, jailing her would be rather extreme step, as the practice does appear to be rather common, if not exactly "best", like you describe it (there were explicit laws against precisely that). However, this is just another example of the fact that among the elites, legal system is just an extension of politics, a tool used to achieve specific political goals. That does not give it much legitimacy in the eyes of the common folk, who see that they are simply lied to when they are told about "equality under the law".

Right, right, that was wrong on so many levels. Ivanka is doing the same damned thing, only it hasn't exactly made the news. Only difference this time, people are suing to try to force the issue that the law is followed.

Both campaigns this election relied heavily on both of those apps.

Campaigns are not supposed to follow the same procedures as the sitting president.

Whatever excuses you like for your government doing things behind closed doors away from public accountability to the electorate.

That's not what I'm looking for in my elected officials.

In order to have an elected official, there first must be an election. That is the phase during which campaigns operate.

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