Officials were “directed” by White House lawyers to “remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored,” and load it on to a “separate electronic system” normally used for “classified information of an especially sensitive nature.”
Is it unusual to store something like this call transcript on there? The whistleblower says one White House official described this act as an “abuse of this electronic system, because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”
The
executive order that governs classified information specifically forbids classification in order to protect information that’s embarrassing or otherwise politically sensitive. This is something Congress would want to look at.
This system is highly regulated and protected with the most rigorous safeguards available. The introduction of any materials that don’t meet that very high threshold corrupts the integrity of that system. It’s now going to be under tremendous scrutiny, including by Congress.
This has the potential to make information that
should be on the system more vulnerable and expose it to additional eyeballs and to additional risk, which has the potential to do tremendous harm.
An appendix in the whistleblower complaint says, “according to White House officials I spoke with, this was not the first time under this administration that a presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system, solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information.”
Is placing anything in this system because of its political sensitivity itself an abuse of power? What does it mean that it may have happened multiple times?
It means officials leveraged infrastructure designed to protect our most sensitive secrets to protect the president himself.
What recourse is there at this point?
Congress needs to determine if these calls represented additional attempts by Trump to put his own personal and political interests ahead of the national interest. Congress must also scrutinize whether the preservation of records of those calls on this particular system points to an attempted coverup by those around the president.
