Trump’s iPhone: the largest security breach of White House communications in history
by digby
My Salon column this morning:
I’m sure most Americans woke up yesterday morning and were shocked to see that President Trump had been unable to maintain even the tepid level of concern he’d shown the night before toward the attempted assassination of important figures on his enemies list. He had been cutesy in his Wisconsin rally, blandly reciting words about unity before holding the media responsible for the attack for reporting on what a flaming trainwreck he and his administration are. And he repeatedly smirked and called attention to the fact that he wasn’t calling the bombing targets “low-IQ” or “crooked” by saying how he was being “nice” which made his followers laugh and laugh. They knew he didn’t mean it.
Still, a major bomb threat against former presidents and other political figures is of such serious magnitude that one might have thought he could go 24 hours without reverting to his usual reckless incitement. But he couldn’t. And it wasn’t because he’s focused like a laser on the election, which one might have expected. After all, this event had interrupted his “Caravan Invasion” storyline which was no doubt very disappointing.
No, what got Trump out of his temporary “nice” mode was a story in the New York Times on Wednesday night which reported that the Intelligence Community was beside itself because Trump was still gabbing on his unsecured iPhone and they had proof that Chinese and Russian government agents were listening in. Furthermore, they reported that his staff has warned him over and over that the calls are not secure and he simply refuses to give it up. The most his staff can hope for is that he isn’t sharing any classified or sensitive information.
This story had him raving. His first tweet of the day, early in the morning was this:
You can tell that he was burning up about it because he came back to it three hours later:
In between, he tweeted about how the media had caused all the anger in our culture by being negative about him.
He posted those tweets from his iPhone.
There are numerous accounts of him being unwilling to give up his phone going back to the beginning of his administration. Last April, as John Kelly was widely reported to be losing influence and the president was acting as his own chief of staff, CNN reported that Trump had gone back to more frequent use of his personal iPhone after having cut back for a short time. (Wanting to adhere to security protocols, Kelly prefers the president to use secure landlines.)
I won’t go into the rank hypocrisy of the man who won the White House by calling his rival “crooked” for using a personal email server — a non-crime for which his followers still lustily call for her to be imprisoned. (They even did it on the day it was revealed she had been targeted for assassination.) Neither is it worthwhile to point out that Republicans apparently have no problem with any of this either, despite their hysteria over Clinton’s emails. Calling out these people for hypocrisy and double standards is a waste of breath. After all, in their alternate universe Trump is the real victim of the assassination attempts.
But it is useful to examine what this episode says about Trump’s personal relationships and his lackadaisical attitude toward national security. According to NBC News, Trump likes to get on his cell phone and chatter to a wide array of informal advisers including some we know of like Sean Hannity and US officials have been concerned for months that he’s sharing sensitive information with them. Of course he is. He’s the most indiscreet president in history.
According to the Times, the Chinese have pieced together a list of Trump buddies with business interests in China whom they then find ways to influence. They even name a couple of them: “Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Blackstone Group chief executive who has endowed a master’s program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Steve Wynn, the former Las Vegas casino magnate who used to own a lucrative property in Macau.”
It’s fair to assume that one of the main reasons Trump is so upset about this story is the fact that his buddies have been exposed as well. Trump isn’t easily embarrassed (and I assume he’ll get over this one in no time) but these people can’t be happy about this. They almost certainly assumed that the most secure telephone conversation in the world would be talking to the president of the United States.
One can’t help but also wonder if Trump ever discusses his own business interests when he’s chatting on the phone. It seems unlikely that he doesn’t. He’s still fully invested in all of his foreign properties and it would be out of character for him not to discuss how well they’re all doing with his business pals.
Whether or not it’s true that Chinese agents know Trump’s current thinking about his own business and financial interests, they certainly have heard his thinking about them. Trump has said many times that he won’t discuss his strategy publicly because it would take away the element of surprise. I guess the surprise is on him.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the report is the fact that the Russian government is also spying on the president but according to the Times, because of his close relationship with Vladimir Putin, they haven’t put as much effort into it. Still, aides have told him repeatedly that Russia is listening to his calls and Trump doesn’t care. I guess he and Vlad have no secrets.
And that explains why this story was leaked the way it was. The New York Times went to some length to explain that their sources weren’t trying to undermine the president, they were just frustrated that he continued to refuse to operate his communications in a secure fashion. That’s why they made it clear that it was the Chinese boogeymen who were listening in and they were working his friends on the business side. That got his attention.
George W. Bush’s chief White House Information Officer and current CEO of a security firm, Theresa Payton told Fast Company magazine, “If true, this may be the largest, most significant breach of White House communications in history.” I’m sure Trump will be thrilled to hear it. He loves to be “the largest, most significant” no matter what it is.
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