Only Donald Trump.

Only Donald Trump could be president of the United States, a person who – we would think – would have the easiest access to the most secure, secret, communications devices in the entire world, and think that he needed to use his wife’s cell phone to keep his calls “secret” from Chief of Staff John Kelly.

According to Michael Bender’s new book, “Frankly, We Did Win this Election” and an excerpt from The Independent:

“When John Kelly, a retired, four-star Marine general whom Trump had recruited into his administration, invoked his chief of staff authority to listen in on any call that was patched through to the president from the West Wing switchboard, Trump gave friends the number to Melania’s phone to circumvent this official channel,” Bender wrote.

He also wrote that Trump gave more “walk-in privileges” to almost anyone, making the chief of staff’s strategies to restrict access to the president invariably unsuccessful.

“Trump White House aides frequently tried to sneak in one final word during internal debates by leaving him printouts of unsourced and aggressively biased Breitbart News stories that backed up their own position,” Bender wrote.

The next obvious question might be why Trump wanted to keep his calls secret from John Kelly. Of Trump’s chiefs, Priebus, Meadows, Kelly, John Kelly was clearly the strongest and most powerful. Kelly was the least likely to be bullied around, the least likely to put up with Trump’s dirt or possible conflicts with other countries.

Speaking of which, we had all heard the story that Trump refused to give up his personal cell phone and exchange it for a more secure phone, thus making it embarrassingly easy for intelligence services around the world to know his every word. It sure seems likely that these intelligence services would also hear a “Let me call you back on Melania’s phone, this is too…” And then start listening to Melania’s phone, too.

As funny as this is, and it is funny, it was also horrifically dangerous to the country, it might still be, who knows what the Chinese or Russians could use, still, to coerce the government. It was only 100 times worse when Trump was actually president. The Trump term was the most dangerous term in modern memory, perhaps ever, but sometimes it is amazing that it actually wasn’t even worse.

Using your wife’s phone. Jesus, these people.

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