Abbe Lowell, a top Washington lawyer, accidentally forwarded a sensitive letter from the Senate Intelligence Committee to an email prankster on Thursday thinking the prankster was his client Jared Kushner.
The exchange was then posted on the prankster’s Twitter account after he sent it to CNN.
The letter was signed by the committee’s chairman and ranking member, Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner, and requested more information from Kushner about a private email account he set up in December. Kushner did not disclose the existence of the personal account when he was interviewed by the committee earlier this summer, the senators said.
“The committee was concerned to learn of this additional email account from the news media, rather than from you, in your closed staff interview,” Burr and Warner wrote. “Please confirm that the document production that you made to the Committee … included the additional ‘personal email account’ described to the news media.”
Politico reported Sunday that Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, had used a private email address to communicate with top White House officials, including the former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
A representative for Warner declined to comment. A representative for Burr did not respond to request for comment.
Lowell said in response to the leaked letter that it was “perfectly normal that the committees would want to make sure that they received all pertinent records.”
“We did review this account at the time, and there were no responsive or relevant documents there,” he said. “The committee was so informed when the documents were sent, and there is no issue here.”
He did not respond to further questions about the fact that he forwarded a sensitive committee document to an email prankster just two days after exchanging emails with him thinking he was Kushner.
In emails obtained by Business Insider on Monday, the prankster wrote to Lowell from the email address [email protected] asking what he should do with “some correspondence on my private email … featuring adult content.”
After a back-and-forth, Lowell wrote: “I need to see I think all emails between you and WH (just for me and us).”
“We need to send any officials emails to your WH account,” he added. “Not stuff like you asked about. None of those are going anywhere.”
Lowell’s suggestion that he needs to see all emails sent or received from Kushner’s private account raises questions about whether he has fully examined the messages and what kind of information they contained.
As reported by Business Insider