Trump defends Ivanka's use of personal email

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump over her use of personal email for official business, while Democrats in the US House of Representatives announced plans to investigate the matter.

"You're talking about a whole different -- you're talking about all fake news," the president told reporters outside the White House a day after The Washington Post revealed Ivanka's use of the private account for some official business, Efe reported.

"There was no deletion, there was no nothing. Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 emails. She had a server in the basement. That's the real story," Trump said, referring to the former secretary of state and his opponent in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump's remarks come after media reports on Tuesday that Democrats in the House of Representatives plan to investigate Ivanka Trump's case.

"We launched a bipartisan investigation last year into White House officials' use of private email accounts for official business, but the White House never gave us the information we requested," Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

"We need those documents to ensure that Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner (Ivanka's husband and also a White House adviser) and other officials are complying with federal records laws and there is a complete record of the activities of this Administration," Cummings said.

The case is similar to that of Clinton, whose use of personal email led to an FBI investigation and harsh criticism by Trump during the election campaign, and the mogul even proposed jail time for his opponent during the race.

But on Tuesday the president focused on the differences between the actions of Clinton and his daughter.

"They weren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton," Trump said. "She wasn't doing that to hide her emails."

--IANS

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