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US State Dept documents with sensitive information on Trump-Putin found lying on hotel printer: Report
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chief of Protocol of the United States Monica Crowley after the Russian leader met with U.S. President Donald Trump. AFP
Just two hours before the talks between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, a US State Department document containing sensitive government information was discovered on a public printer at an Alaska hotel. According to NPR, the eight pages of the document contained a schedule, several phone numbers of government employees, and a luncheon menu.
As per the report, the document was found on a public hotel printer at Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage. The hotel is a 20-minute drive away from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where the two world leaders met on Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine.
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Three guests staying at the same hotel found pages around 9 am on Friday, two hours before the summit commenced, NPR reported. However, it remains unclear exactly who left the paper. The images obtained by NPR noted that seven of the pages were 'produced by the Office of the Chief of Protocol." The hotel, which has 550 rooms, declined to comment on the location of the printers.
In a statement to The Independent, Tommy Pigott, the State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson, slammed the publication for reporting on the matter. 'Instead of covering the historic steps towards peace achieved at Friday's summit, NPR is trying to make a story out of a lunch menu. Ridiculous," he said.
Not a security breach
A White House spokesperson told NPR that abandoning the documents in a public printer was not considered a security breach. As per the report, the first five pages of the state department document contain the sequence of the day's events, including the participants, locations, and times.
Below the names of Putin and his Russian aides were the pronunciations for each name. Under the Russian president's name, the file suggests: 'POO-tihn."
Apart from this, the pages also comprised phone numbers of government employees along with a gift Trump planned to give to Putin. According to NPR, the gift to the Russian leader was 'American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.' Meanwhile, the sixth page showed a lunch seating chart.
The two world leaders were seated at the centre of the table, flanked on both sides by their respective officials, six for Trump and five for Putin. The seating chart mentioned where Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff will be sitting for the lunch.
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Meanwhile, Putin's group included his Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, his Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov, and Minister of Defence Andrey Belousov. The seventh page of the document included the menu for lunch, which ended up being cancelled on Friday.
As per the photograph obtained by NPR, the two world leaders and their teams were supposed to be offered a green salad with champagne vinaigrette dressing and sourdough bread with rosemary lemon butter. For the main course, there would've been a choice of either filet mignon with brandy peppercorn sauce or halibut Olympia.
Buttery whipped potatoes and roasted asparagus were supposed to be ordered on the sides, while the planned dessert was créme brulé with ice cream. Finally, the last page showed what appeared to be a stylised copy of the menu. At the top read: 'Luncheon in honour of his excellency Vladimir Putin.'
White House brushes off the matter
While speaking to NPR, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly brushed off the discovery as a 'multi-page lunch menu' and suggested leaving the documents on a public printer was not a security breach. However, other lawmakers and security experts lambasted the administration over the latest incident in Alaska.
'How many more headlines are we going to read about INCOMPETENT security breaches by the Trump Admin???' Florida Democratic Congressman Darren Soto posted on X Saturday.
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Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor, told NPR that the incident 'strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration." 'You just don't leave things in printers. It's that simple,' he added.
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