Government papers
found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump-Putin summit
Updated August 16, 20251:56
PM ET
Papers
with U.S. State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business
center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially
sensitive details about the Aug. 15 meetings between President Donald Trump and
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.
Eight pages, that
appear to have been produced by U.S. staff and left behind accidentally, shared
precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S.
government employees.
At around 9 a.m.
on Friday, three guests at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel located 20
minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where leaders from the U.S. and
Russia convened, found the documents left behind in one of the
hotel's public printers. NPR reviewed photos of the documents taken by one of
the guests, who NPR agreed not to identify because the guest said they feared
retaliation.
Pictures of two documents about the Trump-Putin meeting in
Alaska that were found in a public hotel printer in Anchorage.
NPR
The
first page in the printed packet disclosed the sequence of meetings for August
15, including the specific names of the rooms inside the base in Anchorage
where they would take place. It also revealed that Trump intended to give Putin
a ceremonial present.
"POTUS
to President Putin," the document states, "American Bald Eagle Desk
Statue."
On
Saturday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the papers as
a "multi-page lunch menu" and suggested leaving the information on a
public printer was not a security breach. The U.S. Department of State did not
respond to requests for comment.
Pages
2 through 5 of the documents listed the names and phone numbers of three U.S.
staff members as well as the names of 13 U.S. and Russian state leaders. The
list provided phonetic pronouncers for all the Russian men expected at the
summit, including "Mr. President POO-tihn."
Pages
6 and 7 in the packet described how lunch at the summit would be served, and
for whom. A menu included in the documents indicated that the luncheon was to
be held "in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin."
A
seating chart shows that Putin and Trump were supposed to sit across from each
other during the luncheon. Trump would be flanked by six officials: Secretary
of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House Chief
of Staff Susie Wiles to his right, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent,
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve
Witkoff to his left. Putin would be seated immediately next to his Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, and his Aide to the President for Foreign
Policy, Yuri Ushakov.
During the summit Friday,
lunch was apparently cancelled. But it was intended to be a simple,
three-course meal, the documents showed. After a green salad, the world leaders
would dine on filet mignon and halibut olympia. Crème brûlée would be served
for dessert.
Jon
Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA who lectures about national security, said
that the documents found in the printer of the Alaskan hotel reveal a lapse in
professional judgement in preparation for a high-stakes meeting.
"It
strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the
administration," said Michaels. "You just don't leave things in
printers. It's that simple."
The printed
papers are the latest example of a series of security breaches by officials of
the Trump administration. Earlier this week, members of a law enforcement group
chat that included members of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) added a random
person to a conversation about an ongoing search for a convicted attempted
murderer. In March, U.S. national security leaders accidentally included a
journalist in a group chat about
impending military strikes in Yemen.
