Top Democrats asked Thursday that the intelligence community do a threat review on President Trump’s cellphone behavior after reports that he uses unsecured devices to communicate with friends and to post on Twitter.
Both CNN and Politico have reported in recent months that Mr. Trump relies on his personal cellphone to call friends, circumventing White House policies. Mr. Trump says the protocols his security experts want him to follow are “too inconvenient,” Politico reported.
Four Democrats, including members of the Senate intelligence committee, asked Thursday for a counterintelligence probe to see what risks the president was running.
“If the president has indeed been using unsecured devices to communicate with associates, it represents a grave danger to U.S. national security,” said Sens. Richard Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich.
They said Homeland Security detected cell site simulators deployed in proximity to the White House and speculated that those could be part of a foreign intelligence operation to scoop up the president’s communications.
Several House Democrats made a similar request for a security review in April.
Mr. Trump’s phone has long been an obsession for Democrats, who just after the president took office demanded an investigation into reports that the president used a five-year-old version of a phone.
