Some US media claimed that documents from the summit between US President Trump and Russian President Putin in Anchorage, Alaska were found left on a public printer. In response, the White House deemed it “ridiculous”. However, this response has sparked质疑from multiple parties.
Anna Kelly, Deputy Press Secretary of the White House, said in an interview on the 16th, “It’s absolutely ridiculous to treat an multi-page lunch menu as a ‘security vulnerability’.” According to US newspaper Capitol Hill on the 17th, the White House made this statement in response to a report by National Public Radio (NPR) on the 16th.
NPR’s report mentioned that on the morning of the 15th, a printer at a hotel in Anchorage was found with 8 pages of confidential documents with the logo of the US State Department, which disclosed unpublicized sensitive details of Trump’s meeting with Putin that day. These accidentally left behind documents by US personnel detailed the summit participants, time, place (including conference room names), contact information of US government employees, and confidential arrangements for lunch. The documents also included pronunciation guides for Russian officials, such as “POO-tihn” for President Putin. Additionally, it was revealed that Trump planned to present Putin with a “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue”.
According to NPR, the incident occurred at the four-star Captain Cook Hotel, which is only 20 minutes away from the Elmen多夫-Richardson Joint Military Base where the US-Russia heads met. Around 9 am on the 15th, three guests staying at the hotel found these documents, and the summit was scheduled to start two hours later. It is still unclear who left these documents, but according to images obtained by NPR, seven pages were produced by the Protocol Department of the US State Department.
The UK’s Independent Newspaper reported that US lawmakers and security experts have strongly criticized this incident. “How many more news about government incompetence and security loopholes do we need to see??” Florida Democratic Congressman Darren Soto wrote on social media platform X.
Michael S., a law professor at UCLA, told NPR that this incident “further proves the carelessness and incompetence of this government”, and confidential documents should never be left on public printers.
In a statement to The Independent Newspaper, Tommy Pigott, Deputy Spokesperson for the US State Department, said it was ridiculous that NPR tried to turn a lunch menu into news.
Actually, the US government has experienced multiple notable leaks in its early days of governance. In March, US Secretary of Defense Hogeith sent a plan to combat Yemeni Houthis to senior officials and one from The Atlantic Monthly through chat app Signal. Additionally, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau previously added unrelated personnel to an enforcement chat group when tracking down an attempted murderer.