A major decision will have to be taken by President Elect – Joe Biden and his team regarding the sharing of the transcripts of various calls of the President with foreign leaders or whether to maintain a lockdown on the official call transcripts or sensitive information. Biden’s team has revealed that decisions regarding the transfer of the sensitive information has already been taken.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s choice as the National Security adviser will evaluate their information security needs. Biden’s team will be given access to the secret server that contained all the sensitive information. Trump’s team will be sharing the information based on a need to know basis. Extreme care will have to be exercised to prevent leaks. In the early days of the Trump administration controversial remarks made by Trump in his calls with the leaders of Australia and Mexico were leaked. This was attributed to a loose record distribution policy. Officials were then prompted to use secret servers for the storage of calls with the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia. It was later debated whether too many people had access to sensitive information when Trump had come into power. The environment in the USA currently is politically charged and it will be wise to maintain some control believe senior leaders.
It was also mentioned that Trump’s conversations with leaders like the Russian President – Putin or Mohammed Bin Salman Crown Prince of Saud Arabia will be shared only f it impacts National security or any other pending policy. Biden will start receiving Presidential briefings from next week beginning Monday. This was a protocol that has been delayed by four weeks given Trump’s refusal to concede. An official informed that all briefings related to the Coronavirus response will not be handled by the National Security Council but by the HHS and the White House Coronavirus task force.
