>
www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/poli...36265c-05eb-11e8-94e8-e8b8600ade23_story.html
>
>
>Ethics training reminds White House staff
>not to use encrypted messages
>for government business
>
>By?Carol D. Leonnig,?Josh Dawsey,?Ashley Parker
>
>February 5, 2018 at 5:43 PM
>
>
>White House staffers have been attending
>mandatory ethics training sessions in
>recent weeks. (Jabin Botsford/Washington, D.C.)
>
>
>White House lawyers have been reminding
>President Trump's staff not to
>use encrypted messaging apps for
>official government business as the
>administration seeks to dismiss a
>lawsuit accusing it of violating
>federal records laws.
>
>The warnings were issued during mandatory
>ethics training sessions held for
>White House personnel in the
>past several weeks. During the
>hour-long briefings, deputy counsel Stefan
>C. Passantino told staffers to
>use only White House email
>for work communications and not
>any unofficial platforms such as
>smartphone apps, texts and private
>emails, according to several people
>in attendance.
>
>Using such messaging services for official
>government business could violate the
>Presidential Records Act, which requires
>that nearly all official White
>House correspondence be preserved.
>
>Some participants at the ethics sessions
>in the Old Executive Office
>Building said Passantino suggested that
>there had been inappropriate use
>of smartphone apps such as
>WhatsApp.
>
>"He did focus on WhatsApp ?
>said that people were using
>it, and it wasn't appropriate,"
>said one staffer who attended
>a recent briefing and requested
>anonymity to describe the discussion.
>"He said, 'All those apps
>are a big problem.' "
>
>Passantino declined to comment, but White
>House officials disputed that description
>of his remarks. Although he
>noted that executive branch employees
>should not use such platforms
>for official business, they said,
>he did not assert that
>officials had been relying on
>them in the past.
>
>"Regular ethics briefings are a critically
>important part of a much
>larger initiative designed to ensure
>that all White House personnel
>hold themselves to the highest
>possible ethical standards," White House
>spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. "It's
>disheartening to see the false
>accusations of anonymous sources outweigh
>the truth of what was
>actually said in the briefing."
>
>
>Passantino instructed anyone who received work-related
>communications on unofficial platforms to
>forward them to their White
>House email so official administration
>business could be preserved, according
>to people in attendance. A
>White House official said Passantino
>used the example of a
>staffer who receives a work-related
>question on a private Gmail
>account, saying that employee should
>reply and copy his or
>her government email to ensure
>that communications are steered to
>official accounts.
>
>In addition, he reminded aides to
>preserve White House records and
>not conduct political activities that
>could violate the Hatch Act,
>these people said.
>
>The reminder came as the White
>House contends with a lawsuit
>filed in June by the
>watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility
>and Ethics in Washington (CREW),
>which alleges that the administration
>is failing to comply with
>records laws because of past
>reports that aides have used
>messaging apps to communicate.
>
>The Trump administration has argued that
>the case should be dismissed
>because courts do not have
>authority to review the executive
>branch's compliance with the law.
>
>
>CREW lawyer Anne Weismann said the
>White House ethics sessions reinforce
>her group's case.
>
>"They know that these apps are
>being used; they know the
>requirements of the Presidential Records
>Act are not being met,"
>she said. "I guess I
>will claim some victory. . . .
>If they are in fact
>now training people and monitoring
>compliance, that's a good thing."
>
>
>The recent focus on appropriate communication
>channels came as part of
>mandatory ethics training sessions the
>White House Counsel's Office has
>been leading for all executive
>staff since early January.
>
>Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared
>Kushner, attended a session last
>month, according to people familiar
>with his participation. Last year,
>an attorney for Kushner?confirmed?that he
>used a private email account
>to discuss official White House
>business during his first nine
>months in government service. Those
>messages were forwarded to his
>official email account for preservation,
>the attorney said.
>
>Other administration officials seen in the
>recent ethics briefings were White
>House lawyer Ty Cobb, national
>security adviser H.R. McMaster, homeland
>security adviser Tom Bossert and
>several members of the White
>House press office.
>
>The sessions coincide with a ban
>on use of personal cellphones
>inside the White House, a
>policy that administration officials said
>was directed by White House
>Chief of Staff John F.
>Kelly to improve security and
>was fully implemented last month.
>Staffers said that when they
>arrive for work each morning,
>they are instructed to deposit
>their personal phones in lockers
>installed at White House entrances.
>A senior White House official
>said all messaging apps have
>been deactivated on government phones.
>
>
>In February 2017, The Washington Post?reported,
>staffers were using Confide to
>discuss internal White House operations
>out of fear of being
>accused of leaking information to
>the media. The Confide app
>deletes messages as soon as
>they are read.
>
>The following month, then-House Oversight Committee
>Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R.-Utah) and
>ranking Democrat Elijah E. Cummings
>of Maryland sent a letter
>to the White House seeking
>assurances that the Trump administration
>was complying with the presidential
>records law.
>
>In response, White House legislative affairs
>chief Marc Short wrote that
>the administration was "committed" to
>retaining work records.
>
>"It is the policy of the
>White House to comply with
>the preservation requirements of the
>[Presidential Records Act]," Short wrote.
>"All White House personnel have
>received or will receive mandatory
>in-person training on their obligations
>under the PRA."
Geezus boskee!
#livelikezac