WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he might end the long-running practice of letting other administration officials listen in on presidential calls with foreign leaders. That’s after Trump’s impeachment was triggered by his July phone call with the president of Ukraine.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“I may end the practice entirely,” Trump told Geraldo Rivera in a radio interview that aired Thursday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House staffers listened in on Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In it, Trump asked the foreign leader to look into Ukraine’s alleged involvement in the 2016 presidential election and the activities of Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
As is standard practice in any administration, White House staffers, working in the secure, soundproof Situation Room in the West Wing basement, listened in and chronicled the conversation. National Security Council personnel then prepared a memorandum about the call, which serves as an official record.
Larry Pfeiffer, a 30-year U.S. intelligence veteran who managed the Situation Room during the Obama years, said his predecessor told him that the White House had stopped taping presidential calls in the 1970s after President Richard Nixon recorded 3,700 hours of conversations. Transcripts of those conversations were used by Watergate investigators and during the impeachment hearings that followed.
Of course he wants privacy. To cheat, self-deal, give away security secrets to tsar pootin.
It would be a very wise move on his part to prevent others from hearing about his deals with foreign leaders. Think of the great deals he could make and the real estate opportunities. He could even discuss Putin’s methods for dealing with journalists, of Duarte’s hit lists. And best of all he could avoid another impeachment.
Geraldo Rivera is still alive. I had no idea.
Our President cannot hide from History. The people he calls will be recording him.
‘trump says’ – so tired of hearing that. get rid of this putz, please, please