Scoop: Trump aides fear Haberman and Swan obtained Situation Room tapes for "Regime Change"
Article excerpt
Top White House officials fear that New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan obtained audio recordings of classified Situation Room meetings for their forthcoming book, "Regime Change." If true, such a leak would represent an extraordinary breach of national security protocols governing some of the government's most sensitive deliberations. The concern underscores tensions between the Trump administration and the press over access to confidential materials, and raises questions about how journalists obtained such material and what safeguards, if any, protected the recordings.
Top White House officials believe New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan obtained audio recordings of Situation Room meetings for their forthcoming book, "Regime Change."
Why it matters: Such a taped leak would be a shocking breach of one of the most secure settings on Earth. Independent recording devices in the Situation Room are forbidden.
"We're afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded," an administration source told us. "And we have no idea which ones."
Verbatim accounts of several Situation Room meetings were included in excerpts about the Iran war and the Epstein files that The Times posted ahead of the book's June 23 publication. The authors conducted more than 1,000 interviews for "Regime Change," which covers Trump's second term.
Tellingly, White House officials haven't disputed verbatim dialogue from the top-secret Sit Room talks, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying about Bibi's regime-change scenarios for Iran: "In other words, it's bullshit."
We hear President Trump is furious about the blow-by-blow accounts.
Haberman and Swan refused to comment.
More on the book.
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