Donald Trump defends daughter Ivanka amid personal email scrutiny

US President Donald Trump has defended his daughter Ivanka Trump who is being criticised for using her private email for official purposes in a possible violation of federal record-keeping laws, saying the emails didn't contain classified information and haven't been deleted.

President Trump, in the run-up to the US Presidential election in 2016, had slammed former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for using a private email server during her term as the top US diplomat.

The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that Trump's daughter Ivanka sent hundreds of emails about government business from a personal email account last year to White House aides, Cabinet members and her assistant.

This was in violation of public records rules, the daily alleged.

Trump said that these emails were not classified like those of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

"Just so you understand, early on and for a little period of time, Ivanka did some emails," Trump told reporters when asked about the charges from his political opponents.

"They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton, who deleted 33(000) -- she wasn't hiding -- she wasn't doing anything to hide her emails," he said.

"I looked at it just very briefly today and the presidential records -- they're all in presidential records. There was no hiding. There was no deleting like Hillary Clinton did. There was no servers in the basement like Hillary Clinton had. You're talking about a whole different -- you're talking about all fake news," Trump said.

What Ivanka did is all in the presidential records.

"Everything is there. There was no deletion. There was no nothing. What it is is a false story. Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 emails. She had a server in the basement. That's the real story," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy wrote to the White House asking for more information on Ivanka's usage of her personal email for government businesses.

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said they are planning to look into the use of her personal email account for businesses purposes to determine whether she violated federal law.