Chinese spies might be listening in on U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal phone calls, assessing how much influence his friends wield over the head of state.
According to a New York Times source who interviewed several current and former U.S. officials (who asked to remain anonymous), Trump is still using several personal cellphones even after security advisors have pressured him to use his more secure White House landline.
The U.S. President reportedly uses his cellphones to call friends including former casino magnate Steve Wynn and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who heads the Blackstone Group. Both men are or were highly involved in China; the former used to own casinos in Macau and the latter has endowed a master’s program at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes several political leaders in China such as President Xi Jinping.
The NYT says that White House security officials have repeatedly warned Trump that his cellphones’ calls are not secure and that Chinese and even Russian spies may be listening. But, as a matter of convenience, Trump refuses to stop using them.
The officials suggested that Chinese spies are using the information gathered from Trump’s phone calls to ascertain the best ways to influence the President. They are examining who wields considerable influence over Trump and on what issues.
Then they may pressure these individuals to pass information or feed arguments – sometimes without them even knowing – to Trump in the hope of influencing his policies. Reportedly, limiting the scope of the Sino- U.S. trade war is at the top of the list, though there are a host of other issues that will be of interest to Chinese intelligence officials too.
One U.S. official told the NYT that Chinese officials were pushing for sit-down meetings between Trump and Xi as often as possible, adding that their impression is that these personal, one-on-one meetings are more likely to yield diplomatic breakthroughs than communication through government channels.
The silver lining, according to the NYT sources, is that Trump’s natural paranoia about technology and surveillance might led him to be more reserved in disclosing information on his insecure personal cellphones. They told the newspaper that Trump rarely shows an interest in intelligence briefs and is therefore unlikely to be relaying that information to anyone.
President calls report on phone spying ‘soooo wrong’
U.S. President Donald Trump disputed the accuracy of the New York Times report that the China’s spies eavesdrop on calls he makes on unsecured iPhones after Beijing dismissed the story as “fake news.” “The so-called experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote a long and boring article on my cellphone usage that is so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it,” Trump said yesterday morning in a Twitter posting. “I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo wrong!”
The president’s comments follow Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying’s comment earlier yesterday that “certain people in the U.S. are sparing no efforts to win the best screenplay award for the Oscars.” Hua didn’t directly address allegations the Times reported – that Trump had disregarded warnings from his aides that China and Russia were monitoring his conversations.
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