Although then-Special Council Robert Mueller’s famous report indicated a clear hesitancy to directly accuse former president Donald Trump of collusion with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 Presidential Election, it did paint a fascinating picture of the Trump Campaign’s relationship with the Kremlin.
As Time reported , the investigation uncovered evidence of a coordinated social media campaign originating from Russia to disparage Hillary Clinton as well as hacking operations targeting her campaign that eventually saw the release of stolen documents. With this, the report was able to establish a clear understanding that the Russian government stood to benefit from a Trump presidency and “worked to secure that outcome.”
And it is within that context that eyes within America’s national security community are now turning to the files concerning Trump’s calls with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and what President Joe Biden can do with them.
Throughout his administration, Trump engaged in at least a dozen private calls and in-person meetings with Putin that he kept under wraps.
As Politico reported , these conversations often lasted an hour or longer and in the case of in-person meetings, it wasn’t unusual for Trump to either confiscate his interpreter’s notes or bar American translators and aides from attending them at all.
In the case of calls, an aide would be on the line to take notes on what was said, which would be preserved in loose transcripts called “memcons” or memorandums of conversations.
And according to Politico, Trump treated these memcons as he typically did with materials related to his private conversations with other world leaders: he had some hidden in the top-secret codeword system administered by the National Security Council.
This prevented his staff and even the members of his cabinet from accessing them. Anything that would have been publicly shared after his conversations with Putin took place would either come directly from the Kremlin or directly from Trump’s Twitter account.
And among former national security officials, the contents of these memcons are a matter of great national interest.
As one speaking under condition of anonymity told Politico, “It is a national security priority to find out what Trump said to Putin. Some things, like what happened in some face-to-face meetings where no American translator or note-taker was present, may never be fully known. But I would be very surprised if the new national security team were not trying to access [the call records.]”
At the same time, a former White House official under Trump argued they should not be released to Biden, saying, “There are certain things a president and his immediate staff should be able to hold privileged to do the work of government, without being subject to constant partisan gamesmanship.”
However, one of that person’s former colleagues explained that this is not how it works and that Biden would have gained access to this material as soon as he took office.
This was confirmed by Kel McClanahan of the National Security Counselors law firm, who said, “The only person who can claim executive privilege anywhere is the sitting president. So there is literally no situation, nor could there be, where a former president could keep a sitting president from seeing something.”
And while nobody currently serving in the Biden administration has commented on whether anyone has seen the files from these calls, the National Security Council confirmed they have yet to receive any complaints about inaccessible materials dating back to the previous administration.
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Whenever President Biden wants to access these files, he can do so through the National Archives and Records Administration.
So now, the only remaining question concerns whether these files reveal any instances of Trump sharing classified information with Putin.
While former Trump advisers said they rarely heard him say anything to Putin that he hadn’t already made publicly known, it’s unclear how much they didn’t get to hear.
h/t: Politico
