Day 460: Trump Takes Massive and Hypocritical Security Risk

Donald Trump made a big part of his campaign pouncing on the idea that Hillary Clinton could not be trusted with classified information, and railed about her use of a private server as proof.

Is the 460 days since his inauguration, he hasn’t exactly proven to be a stalwart of secrecy. For instance, he disclosed highly classified secrets to the Russians during a meeting and has held multiple national security meetings in open dining rooms.

So it should come as no real surprise that the use of his private cell phone is on the rise, something both reckless and hypocritical.

He’s using it to call friends and generally avoid Chief of Staff John Kelly’s eyes and ears.

Sources cited Trump’s stepped-up cell phone use as an example of chief of staff John Kelly’s waning influence over who gets access to the President. During the early days of Kelly’s tenure, multiple sources said, Trump made many of his calls from the White House switchboard — a tactic that allowed the chief of staff to receive a printed list of who Trump had phoned. Kelly has less insight into who Trump calls on his personal cell phone.

While Trump never entirely gave up his personal cell phone once Kelly came aboard, one source close to the White House speculated that the President is ramping up the use of his personal device recently in part because “he doesn’t want Kelly to know who he’s talking to.”

The senior White House official said Trump “is talking to all sorts of people on it,” noting Trump’s barrage of private calls is a “recent development.”

But the national security issues surrounding Trump’s cell phone use are the most concerning. While Barack Obama was permitted to use a Blackberry while in office, it was provided to him and outfitted with enhanced security features, and its functions were greatly reduced.

Trump is wandering around with a phone that doesn’t have many of those protections.

Mary McCord, who used to head the Justice Department’s national security division, says smartphones are notorious for their security vulnerabilities.

“Because the smartphones of high-level government officials — including the President — are obvious targets for foreign intelligence services, the government goes to significant effort to ensure that government-issued smartphones are constantly updated to address security vulnerabilities,” she said. “Use of personal smartphones, which may not have all of the security features of government-issued smartphones or be regularly updated to address newly discovered vulnerabilities, present an obvious potential security risk.”

Another security expert said the President’s increased cell phone use makes his calls more vulnerable to eavesdropping from foreign governments.

“All communications devices of all senior government officials are targeted by foreign governments. This is not new,” said Bryan Cunningham, executive director of the Cybersecurity Policy and Research Institute at the University of California-Irvine.

Trump is an obvious target for eavesdropping. He’s making it far easier for foreign governments to do so while potentially leaving no record of the call on the U.S. government’s side. So despite his campaign rhetoric, Trump cavalier use of a largely unprotected personal cell phone endangers national security interests.

460 days in, 1002 to go

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