Ivanka’s emails are bad, but still not remotely comparable to Hillary’s

First daughter and White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, has apparently taken after another blonde politician who relied on family ties to foray into politics. Yes, like Hillary Clinton, Trump violated government protocol by using a private email account for government business.

But the similarities end there.

Miss Trump didn’t build an egregiously unsecured private email server in a Chappaqua basement bathroom with the specific purpose of circumventing FOIA requests while handling top secret and classified information as secretary of state.

Miss Trump didn’t then delete 30,000 of those emails when investigated by the FBI.

And I would hope that she didn’t do something as catastrophically moronic as have her aides smash her security-violating BlackBerry phones with a hammer and wipe her server. Nor did she give the classic, dishonest, and disingenuous response to the charge that made Hillary’s scandal famous – “with a cloth?”

What Trump did do is use a private email account, which likely is on a regular and secure server, to send a few hundred emails for her White House business. She did something wrong. Like Clinton, she claims that no classified information was ever discussed. Unlike Clinton, she might actually be telling the truth when she says that.

For lack of a better term, Trump’s move was dumb. Anyone who owes their job to nepotism ought to realize that they, more than anyone, need to toe the line and prove their own merit.

But this isn’t even in the same orbit as Clinton’s lunacy.

Trump defended herself against the Washington Post report, saying that she has turned over every last email to the White House, where they’ve since been added to government records, and now is in full compliance of federal protocol.

There is one bit of her defense that’s implausible. The Post reports, “She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.” That’s a bit hard to believe, after a 2016 presidential campaign that focused so much on her father’s opponent playing fast and loose with the rules, acting like she’s above the law, and lying to protect herself. Might Ivanka have missed all that? It seems implausible.

Even so, Democrats would be wise not to bring back the Hillary comparison. After all, what consequences did Clinton face? She was criticized, yes, and voters passed judgment on her honesty. But she wasn’t prosecuted or even fired – or even denied her party’s presidential nomination. As much as people think of her as a victim now, Clinton really did get away with it.

[Read more: Anthony Scaramucci: Ivanka Trump’s private emails a ‘great talking point’ for Democrats]