Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is under investigation by the National Archives and Records Administration for his apparently rampant use of private email to conduct government business. The investigation was kicked off by a Washington Post profile on Ross and the "mess" he's created at Commerce. The profile referenced a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the watchdog organization Democracy Forward that revealed that Ross "has sent or received official correspondence about discussions with the European Commission for Trade, a U.S. ambassador's meeting with German car manufacturers, a dinner featuring the ambassador of Japan, what appears to be an event related to billionaire businessman Bill Koch, and meeting requests from the far-right Internet troll Charles Johnson" through his private email account.
That triggered Archives official Laurence Brewer to write to Jennifer Jessup, Commerce's chief information officer, demanding a response. "The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has become aware of a potential unauthorized disposition of U.S. Department of Commerce records," he wrote, giving Commerce 30 days to respond. This isn't an unusual kind of inquiry for the Archives, but it's not the only investigation Ross faces on the issue.
Democracy Forward has sued the Trump administration for refusing to release documents about efforts to politicize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after the infamous Trump Hurricane-Dorian-hitting-Alabama debacle, when Ross allegedly threatened NOAA officials who didn't back Trump's claims up. Additionally, Ross fired NOAA's acting administrator, who would not subject NOAA's climate research to political interference, earlier this year. The Justice Department argues in that case, according to Politico, that the "Commerce Department should not be required to conduct a direct search of Ross' personal email accounts even though searches of Commerce Department accounts found 280 email chains over a 16-month period that contained references to one [or] more of the four private accounts he used."
"At issue here is whether Commerce must access and search a high-level official's personal email account for merely duplicative emails. It should not," Justice Department attorney Johnny Walker argues. Hillary Clinton is probably not amused.