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The Trump era is when irony dies for gross overuse. He has been ramping up private use of his cell phone for government business.
And guess his explanation for this: yes, he said using his private android is convenient.
Remember the freakout when Hillary said that she used her private server for convenience. The MSM literally had a cow and unlike with Trump literally called her a liar-you didn’t do it because it’s convenient you did it to hide your communications!
Early in so-called ‘President Trump’s term last year the WH was asked if the smartphone he did all the tweeting from was secure and they refused to answer; ie, they refused to say that it was-if it was presumably they would have said so…
Certainly if Trump was using an insecure Android phone for government business that would be much worse than, say, a personal email server.
On the news that Trump is reportedly using his personal cell phone more, I can't help but think of this quote from last year:
"If President Trump is carrying around an unsecured Android phone, that's 1,000 times worse than using a personal email server." https://t.co/m7T2oZf8Nl
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 24, 2018
“Soon after Trump’s inauguration, an enterprising hacker found that Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account was still tied to the Gmail account of a staffer, a move seen as insecure. (The account now seems to be connected to more official and secure White House email accounts.) And a January article in The New York Times reported that Trump continues to tweet from an “old, unsecured Android phone.”
Several cybersecurity experts told NPR, if that’s the case, it’s not good.
“Donald Trump for the longest time has been using a insecure Android phone that by all reports is so easy to compromise, it would not meet the security requirements of a teenager,” says Nicholas Weaver, a computer scientist at the University of California at Berkeley.
“The absence of a clear statement from the White House on the security of Trump’s communications, matched with the continued reports of unsecured smartphone use, has led some to accuse Trump of hypocrisy.”
“He and so many during the campaign were so critical of Secretary (Hillary) Clinton for what they felt were inappropriate practices,” says Michael Sulmeyer, director of the Cyber Security Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “And it really is the height of hypocrisy to … on day one, be doubling down on the exact type of behavior they had no problem riling up the base with.”
But that was early last year. The discussion at the time was if he were using his android that’d have been the height of hypocrisy-and much less secure than Hillary’s server-which Comey and friends were never able to prove was hacked. We didn’t know for sure that he was-though, again, if he were not you wonder why the WH wouldn’t have stated that.
But now we know for a fact that he has been using his own personal android and his use of it has been accelerating:
“President Donald Trump is increasingly relying on his personal cell phone to contact outside advisers, multiple sources inside and outside the White House told CNN, as Trump returns to the free-wheeling mode of operation that characterized the earliest days of his administration.
“He uses it a lot more often more recently,” a senior White House official said of the President’s cell phone.
“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.”
Sounds like the reason Trump finds his insecure Android more convenient is it lets him be less transparent.
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.”
His circumventing of Kelly by ramping up use of his insecure Android enables him to speak a lot more to folks like Corey Lewandowski-and get his brilliant advice(!)
“Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has been one notable beneficiary of Kelly’s loosened grip. One source said Lewandowski recently bragged to friends that he now enjoys “unfettered” access to the President — including a recent dinner in the residence with Trump, according to two sources. Upon his arrival last year, Kelly attempted to limit Lewandowski’s access to Trump from the nearly unchecked privileges he enjoyed at the start of the administration, although Kelly’s efforts were never entirely successful. Lewandowski did not respond to a request for comment.
FN: Of course Lewandowski plays an important part in the Mueller Report’s itemization of Trump’ s obstruction of justice-after McGahn refused to fire Mueller, Trump tried to delegate it to Lewandowski-despite having no role whatsoever at the Russia House. In Hope Hicks testimony yesterday-June 20-through her lawyers she refused to answer any questions about the episode despite being intimately involved and familiar with this attempt to get Lewandowski to fire the Special Counsel.
But, again, for Trump to use his personal android for government business is a major security breach:
“Former President Barack Obama was permitted to use a Blackberry during his presidency. However, the White House said at the time that the device given to Obama was outfitted with enhanced security to protect potentially classified talks.”
“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.
Ironies piled on top of more ironies.
UPDATE: Predictably, however, this story had a short shelf life in the MSM. Elijah Cummings-Chairman of Oversight-had said that getting to the bottom of the private email use of the Russia House was a major priority but while he did request information regarding it the Russia House rebuffed the request as they’ve rebuffed all requests no matter how routine.
How far Oversight is in getting any information on the private email use of the Russia House is a good question. They have gotten some information on security clearances via whistleblowers.
As for the MSM no doubt while their excuse for letting both Trump’s use of an insecure Android for ‘convenience’ is that with so many Trump scandals who can keep up with all of it?-the reality is that they have a much more gentle standard for Trump than they did for Hillary Clinton.
There were a great many fake Clinton scandals in the 1990s yet the MSM never tired of pursuing them or lost track.
The real outrage continues to be not that Trump and his GOP co-conspirators are treated ‘unfairly’ but the opposite: even after Roger Stone pretty clearly threatened his own judge she declined to jail him. The worry about appearing partisan has worked like a charm as Trump and the GOP co-conspirators get away with things that anyone else would have faced stiff sanction for.
UPDATE: Speaking of which prosecutors are now arguing that Roger Stone violated his gag order and should go to sent to jail.
Wether Amy Berman Jackson has-finally-hit her breaking point with Stone remains to be seen-after all even threatening her wasn’t enough to do that.
How many of the rest of us do you imagine could get away with threatening the judge that oversees our case? Even less so if you are a poor African American.