Well, here's a cheery story! An explosive new report Sunday said top White House officials think New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have gotten tapes of audio from inside the Situation Room — in what would be a truly stunning security breach. Via Mediaite:
The shocking report — from Axios’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen — states that top aides to Dumpty Trumpy believe Haberman and Swan got their hands on Situation Room audio for their forthcoming book, Regime Change, out June 23. “We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded,” an unnamed administration source told Vandehei and Allen. “And we have no idea which ones.”
(Of course, they're following the typical pattern of Times reporters saving the real bombshells for their books.)
On Wednesday, the Times published a splashy excerpt from the book centered on the White House’s handling of the DOJ files on Jeffrey Epstein. That piece included heavily quoted accounts from numerous Situation Room meetings in which high-level officials made candid statements. In one of the reported conversations, White House counsel David Warrington floated the idea of a presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell — a suggestion which drew strenuous objections from several others in the room.
Haberman and Swan obtaining Situation Room audio would undoubtedly draw renewed scrutiny on the administration’s ability to keep sensitive conversations private.
VandeHei and Allen noted that independent recording devices are not allowed in the Sitation Room — which they call “one of the most secure settings on Earth.”
Axios reported that Trump is “furious” about the “blow-by-blow accounts” of the Situation Room conversations. They added that Haberman and Swan refused to comment on their report.
