White House rejects New York Times report on Trump’s iPhone

President
Donald Trump.

White
House

• The White House flatly denied that President Donald
  Trump’s cellphone was compromised after a New York Times report
  suggested Chinese spies were listening to his phone
  calls.
• White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in
  a statement that The Times’ report was based on “inaccurate
  information.”
• Gidley added that Trump’s iPhone “follows industry best
  practices and is closely managed under government supervision
  in conjunction with recommendations from industry
  partners.”

The White House on Thursday flatly denied that President Donald
Trump’s cellphone was compromised after a
New York Times report suggested Chinese spies were listening
to his phone calls.

“The article written by the New York Times presented inaccurate
information about the President’s cell phone and its usage,”
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a
statement.

Current and former US officials warned that Trump’s personal
Apple iPhone was monitored by Chinese spies, according
to The Times’ report published Wednesday. Trump reportedly
used two iPhones that were programmed by the National Security
Agency for official use, but also kept a third, personal phone
that was unaltered — much like the normal iPhones on the consumer
market.

Trump was said to use the unaltered personal iPhone because of
its ability to store contacts, the officials said in the report.
One of the two official phones was designated for making calls,
and the other one was for Twitter.

Gidley rejected The Times’ reporting on the number of Trump’s
iPhones and also downplayed the threat they may have posed.

“The President does not have three cellular phones,” Gidley said
in the statement. “He has one official government iPhone. This
phone security follows industry best practices and is closely
managed under government supervision in conjunction with
recommendations from industry partners.”

“The phone is rotated on a regular basis and is constantly
monitored for any security vulnerabilities and attacks, in
accordance with recommendations from the intelligence community,”
Gidley added.

Trump also played down the reported threat by brushing it off on
Twitter.

“The so-called experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote
a long and boring article on my cellphone usage that is so
incorrect I do not have time here to correct it,” Trump said in a
tweet on Thursday morning. “I only use Government Phones, and
have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo
wrong!”

According to the sources cited by The Times, the information
Chinese spies have collected included who Trump regularly speaks
to and was part of a wider lobbying effort to influence his
friends and business associates. US intelligence agencies
discovered the espionage campaign from sources in foreign
governments and intercepted communications from foreign
officials.