A new report, released on Sunday, claims that top White House officials believe New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have obtained audio recordings from inside the Situation Room. This would be a major security issue.
The report, from Axios’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, says that senior advisors to President Donald Trump think Haberman and Swan have access to these audio recordings for their upcoming book, Regime Change, which is set to come out on June 23.
An unnamed official from the administration told VandeHei and Allen, “We’re worried that some of our most private discussions were being recorded, and we don’t know which ones.”
On Wednesday, The New York Times published a big excerpt from the book, focusing on how the White House handled the DOJ files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
That piece included many quotes from Situation Room meetings where top officials spoke openly. In one conversation, White House counsel David Warrington suggested a presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, which others in the room strongly disagreed with.
If Haberman and Swan really got the Situation Room audio, it would make people question how well the administration is keeping sensitive conversations secret.
Earlier this year, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was part of a chat in the Signal app where Trump officials were discussing plans for military strikes in Yemen just before they happened. VandeHei and Allen pointed out that recording devices aren’t allowed in the Situation Room, which they say is one of the most secure places on Earth.
Axios also reported that Trump is very upset about the detailed accounts of Situation Room conversations.
They added that Haberman and Swan have not commented on the report.
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