The white house is dealing with major backlash over allowing a photographer from a Russian state-run news agency to take pictures of Trump meeting with Russian officials. People are suspecting a possible security breach although the White House denies that there was a threat, a White House official admits that they were misled about the role of the Russian photographer.
Trump met with the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. The photographer claimed he was Kislyak’s official photographer but didn’t mention that he worked for Tass, the Russian media agency. The White House was reportedly surprised to see the pictures online, as there was no plan to immediately broadcast the meeting.
The American media was kept in the dark about the meeting and was not invited to take photos. However, the official White House photographer was there. When US media was allowed into the Oval office for a press briefing, both Russian officials were already gone. When the White House did post pictures of the meeting, a day later, there were no pictures of the ambassador and he was not mentioned in the official White House read-out of the meeting.
The White House defended their decision, “We had an official photographer in the room, as did they,” spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
The Kremlin has bugged U.S. facilities in the past, a listening device was found during the time Bill Clinton served. The bug was found in a conference room in the state department. Does this mean there is a security breach? No, probably not. But why take the risk?
Former Deputy Director of the CIA said on Twitter that letting a Russian government photographer into the White House was a bad idea. Also, David Kennedy, who worked in US Intelligence said,“He absolutely could have bugged the Oval Office.You could tuck anything into [camera] equipment and make it very difficult to detect.” However, a Trump administration official claims that all media was screened before entering the White House, just like US media would be.
Should you be worried about Russian photographers bugging the White House? No, not really. Should you be worried that Russian media is getting access to meeting US media isn’t getting access to? Absolutely.
