While President Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a dinner party at Mar a Lago (aka The Winter White House), news broke that North Korea had conducted a missile test. Trump's team responded by bringing sensitive documents right to the president's table and shining their cell phone lights on them in front of club members who, while they have enough money to afford a Mar a Lago membership, probably do not have high-level security clearances.Rico says that even Nixon knew how to keep a secret...
One such member, Richard DeAgazio— a Boston, Massachusetts businessman and aspiring actor who joined the club after Trump's election win— snapped a photo of that moment and posted it to Facebook.
That was one of a collection of photos DeAgazio took. (He has since deleted his Facebook account.) Here's another angle of two world leaders responding to a geopolitical crisis before their entrees arrive:
Here's DeAgazio posing with the aide who carries "the football", a briefcase containing the codes used to authorize a nuclear strike. Richard thought this was another thing that would be a good idea to share with the world:
Should the guy carrying the fate of the world in a black leather satchel really be lining up for photos with members of the president's country club? Just asking for a friend...
As many have pointed out, pointing cell phones at sensitive materials is probably not a good idea. (Reminder: a phone's camera and microphone can be hacked.) Speaking of which, President Trump is reportedly still using a consumer Android phone to tweet during Fox & Friends, among other things. The device is likely sitting on his desk or in his pocket while he reads and hears deeply held state secrets. Remember when Hillary Clinton was investigated by eight different congressional committees for, among other things, using a Blackberry?
Elsewhere, Martin Heinrich, a Senator from New Mexico. pointed out on Twitter that President Trump appeared to breach protocol in his treatment of a classified lockbag.
Furthermore, Trump's various places of residence outside the White House are apparently insufficiently equipped for receiving certain types of classified information. According to reporter Brian Beutler, they lack a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF)
All this hasn't exactly inspired confidence among the intelligence community. It appears that it's not just our allies who are withholding intelligence from the Trump White House— the National Security Agency might be as well. Per The New York Observer:In light of this, and out of worries about the White House's ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that the NSA was systematically holding back some of the "good stuff" from the White House, in an unprecedented move. For decades, the NSA has prepared special reports for the President's eyes only, containing enormously sensitive intelligence. In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets.The problem is not just about the president and his administration's loose grip on classified information, however. What's going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that "since 20 January, we've assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SitRoom," meaning the White House Situation Room, the five-thousand-square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. "There's not much the Russians don't know at this point," the official added in wry frustration.
All this adds up to a damning account of this administration's ability to handle classified information in a way congruent with American national security imperatives. It's also a reminder that, while many are concerned about the extreme positions adopted by this White House, it may be its incompetence that proves most damaging. Trumpism is largely, if inexcusably, immune to any ramifications for engaging in rank hypocrisy, but this is an extraordinary example.
09 June 2017
More Trump stupidity
Jack Holmes has an Esquire article about Trump's laxness with secrets:
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