On Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) praised Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) for saying that Jared Kushner’s alleged use of WhatsApp to send messages to foreign officials is worse than Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State. Clinton herself responded to Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter, causing the congresswoman to freak out.
Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a CNN video showing Khanna slamming Kushner’s use of WhatsApp as “ironic” given that Trump “ran his whole presidential campaign accusing Hillary Clinton of having a private server. … Here you have something that’s much worse.”
Dem. @RepRoKhanna calls reports Kushner was using WhatsApp to communicate with foreign officials “ironic": Pres. Trump “ran his whole presidential campaign accusing Hillary Clinton of having a private server. … Here you have something that’s much worse.” https://t.co/gynmzazL6p pic.twitter.com/whTzaXMk8G
— CNN (@CNN) March 22, 2019
“But his WhatsApp,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
But his WhatsApp https://t.co/kLO3ZHvdbO
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 22, 2019
Hillary Clinton herself replied to this tweet, saying, “Tell me about it.”
Tell me about it.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 22, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez responded with “!!!” — a sign that she was freaking out.
!!!
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 22, 2019
Indeed, Clinton’s response makes a great deal of sense. Since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, she has been edging back into the spotlight. As Ocasio-Cortez became a Democratic celebrity, she arguably eclipsed Clinton, the party’s former nominee. By engaging with the new congresswoman, Clinton increases her own profile, even though Ocasio-Cortez represents a far more radical Democratic Party than the one Clinton led.
Ocasio-Cortez seems to think it an honor to have Clinton interact with her on Twitter.
As for the Kushner-Clinton comparison, it breaks down. It is indeed a scandal and likely a violation of the Presidential Records Act for Kushner to send official messages to foreign officials on the private platform WhatsApp.
However, WhatsApp rolled out an end-to-end encryption in April 2016. According to the company, all messages sent through the platform are secured so that only the sender and the recipient can view them. According to WhatsApp, even the company cannot hack the program to view messages.
This means that the Kushner scandal, while a serious problem, does not rise to the scandal of Clinton’s email server. According to reports, Clinton’s server was highly vulnerable to hacking, and it is quite possible foreign actors were able to access her information.
Perhaps Clinton should think twice before encouraging comparisons between her scandal and Kushner’s.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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