Trump gives out unsecured personal cell phone number to world leaders, asks them to call him directly
President Donald Trump
has been handing out his cellphone number to world leaders and urging
them to call him directly, an unusual invitation that breaks diplomatic
protocol and is raising concerns about the security and secrecy of the
U.S. commander in chief’s communications.
Trump has urged leaders of Canada and Mexico to reach him on his cellphone, according to former and current U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the practice. Of the two, only Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken advantage of the offer so far, the officials said.
All the officials demanded anonymity
because they were not authorized to reveal the conversations. Neither
the White House nor Trudeau’s office responded to requests for comment.
The notion of world leaders calling
each other up via cellphone may seem unremarkable in the modern, mobile
world. But in the diplomatic arena, where leader-to-leader calls are
highly orchestrated affairs, it is another notable breach of protocol
for a president who has expressed distrust of official channels. The
formalities and discipline of diplomacy have been a rough fit for Trump —
who, before taking office, was long easily accessible by cellphone and
viewed himself as freewheeling, impulsive dealmaker.
Presidents generally place calls on
one of several secure phone lines, including those in the White House
Situation Room, the Oval Office or the presidential limousine. Even if
Trump uses his government-issued cellphone, his calls are vulnerable to
eavesdropping, particularly from foreign governments, national security
experts say.
“If you are speaking on an open line,
then it’s an open line, meaning those who have the ability to monitor
those conversations are doing so,” said Derek Chollet, a former Pentagon
adviser and National Security Council official now at the German
Marshall Fund of the United States.
A president “doesn’t carry with him a
secure phone,” Chollet said. “If someone is trying to spy on you, then
everything you’re saying, you have to presume that others are listening
to it.”
The caution is warranted even when
dealing with allies. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s learned in
2013, when a dump of American secrets leaked by Edward Snowden revealed
the U.S. was monitoring her cellphone, good relations don’t prevent some
spycraft between friends.
“If you are Macron or the leader of
any country and you get the cellphone number of the president of the
United States, it’s reasonable to assume that they’d hand it right over
to their intel service,” said Ashley Deeks, a law professor at the
University of Virginia who formerly served as the assistant legal
adviser for political-military affairs in the U.S. State Department.
The practice opens Trump up to charges
of hypocrisy. Throughout last year’s presidential campaign, he
lambasted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for using a private email
server while she was secretary of state, insisting she should not be
given access to classified information because she would leave it
vulnerable to foreign foes.
Presidents’ phone calls with world
leaders often involve considerable advance planning. State Department
and National Security Council officials typically prepare scripted
talking points and background on the leader on the other end of the
line. Often an informal transcript of the call is made and circulated
among a select group — sometimes a small clutch of aides, sometimes a
broader group of foreign policy officials. Those records are preserved
and archived.
The White House did not respond to
questions on whether the president is keeping records of any less-formal
calls with world leaders.
Trump’s White House is already facing scrutiny for apparent efforts to work outside usual diplomatic channels.
The administration has been fending
off questions about a senior aide’s attempt to set up a secret back
channel of communication with Moscow in the weeks before Trump was took
office. White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, met in
December with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. and discussed whether a
secret line of communication could be used to facilitate sensitive
policy discussions about the conflict in Syria, according to a person
familiar with the talks. The person demanded anonymity because the
person was not authorized to discuss the sensitive conversation by name.
The White House has said such back channel communications are useful and discreet.
Trump has struggled more than most
recent presidents to keep his conversations with world leaders private.
His remarks to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Mexican
President Enrique Pena Nieto and Russian diplomats have all leaked,
presumably after notes of the conversations were circulated by national
security officials.
It was unclear whether an impromptu,
informal call with a foreign leader would be logged and archived. The
Presidential Records Act of 1981, passed in response to the Watergate
scandal, requires that the president and his staff preserve all records
related to the office. In 2014, the act was amended to include personal
emails.
But the law contains “blind spots” —
namely, record-keeping for direct cellphone communications, said
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School,
who specializes in public interest and national security law.
Under Barack Obama, the first
cellphone-toting president, worries about cyber intrusions —
particularly by foreign governments — pulled the president’s devices
deep into the security bubble. Many of the functions on Obama’s
BlackBerry were blocked, and a very small handful of people had his
phone number or email address, according to former aides.
“Government sometimes looks like a big
bureaucracy that has stupid rules, but a lot of these things are in
place for very good reasons and they’ve been around for a while and
determine the most effective way to do business in the foreign policy
sphere,” said Deeks. “Sometimes it takes presidents longer to figure
that out.”
Associated Press
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