A ranking Senate Democrat is calling on the State Department to review its political appointees’ use of insecure, personal devices for national security purposes in the wake of impeachment hearing revelations.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to the State Department earlier this week expressing concerns about senior officials’ use of unsecured personal devices to conduct national security work. He said U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s conversation on his cell phone with President Trump about potential Ukraine investigations showcased a widespread problem in the department.
“Ambassador Sondland’s security breaches are not isolated,” Menendez wrote. “Numerous other reports allege widespread use of personal cell phones as a regular means to communicate on highly sensitive matters among and between numerous senior State Department political appointees of the current administration, as well as between those officials and other officials elsewhere in the U.S. government, including President Trump himself.”
Bill Taylor, top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, revealed in his public testimony last week that one of his staffers while at a restaurant in Kiev overheard a phone conversation between Trump and Sondland on July 26, the day after the Ukraine call that led to the impeachment inquiry.
The staffer, who was later revealed to be David Holmes, embassy staffer in Kiev, said during his closed-door deposition on Nov. 15, “The president’s voice was very loud and recognizable, and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ea ..
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