President Trump has increasingly been using his personal cellphone to contact outside advisers in lieu of placing calls through the White House switchboard and leaving records accessible to his chief of staff, John Kelly, CNN reported Monday, citing several unnamed sources.
“He uses it a lot more often more recently,” a senior White House official told CNN with respect to Mr. Trump’s personal cellphone.
The president “is talking to all sorts of people on it,” the senior official reportedly said.
Mr. Trump may be using his personal cellphone more often than before because “he doesn’t want Kelly to know who he’s talking to,” suggested a source close to the White House, CNN reported.
Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Kelly as his chief of staff in July, and afterwards the president placed many of his phone calls through the White House switchboard, CNN reported.
While Mr. Kelly receives printed lists of the White House switchboard calls, he has less insight into contacts made using the Mr. Trump’s personal phone, the report said.
The White House did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
In addition to reportedly contacting outside advisers, Mr. Trump has used his personal cellphone lately to call Republicans on Capitol Hill, three sources familiar with the calls told CNN.
“Basically, at this point, he’s just sort of engaging on his own,” said one of the sources.
“Kelly used to be more clearly the gatekeeper than he is now from a Hill standpoint,” the source said. “I don’t know that he even is running it by the chief of staff anymore,
Former President Barack Obama used a Blackberry phone during his administration, but he previously said that device was stripped of features standardly equipped on modern smartphones, like the ability to take pictures or listen to music.
Mr. Trump exchanged his personal, consumer-grade Android phone days before taking office last January for a stripped-down and secured device approved by the U.S. Secret Service, news outlets reported on the eve of his inauguration. The president’s personal Twitter account continued to post tweets attributed to an Android device afterwards, however, drawing complaints by Democrats concerned over its implications on both national security and federal transparency rules.
“The use of an unsecured phone risks the President of the United States being monitored by foreign or domestic adversaries, many of whom would be happy to hijack the President’s prized Twitter account causing disastrous consequences for global stability,” a group of 15 Democrats led by California Rep. Ted Lieu wrote the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last February. “More frighteningly, hackers could present the President with alternative information, which, as the President has repeatedly demonstrated, can have a huge impact on his beliefs and actions.”
“While it is important for the President to have the ability to communicate electronically, it is equally important that he does so in a manner that is secure and that ensures the preservation of presidential records,” Democratic Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Claire McCaskill wrote in their own letter to the Pentagon that month.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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