US government leaves notes and contact information at Alaska hotel
Documents bearing the seals of the United States government were found Friday morning at a hotel in Alaska, the US state where the summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on the conflict in Ukraine took place. The news was reported by National Public Radio (NPR), which obtained photos of the documents , which included the meeting schedules, the rooms where they would be held at Elmendorf-Richardson Military Base in Anchorage, and the phone numbers of government officials.
According to NPR , the documents were apparently produced by US administration officials and accidentally left behind in a printer at Captain Cook, a four-star hotel 20 minutes from the military base. They were found around 9 a.m. on Friday by three guests.
The front page, published by NPR, shows the summit's agenda, which included a first meeting, held in the Billy Mitchell Room, which was supposed to last 40 minutes. However, the meeting ended up lasting almost three hours, replacing the working lunch, which was supposed to take place between 12:15 and 2:45.
The agenda also included a press conference, to be held in the Susitna Room, which was scheduled to last an hour. Vladimir Putin took the first floor, but his remarks didn't last 15 minutes. There was no room for questions from journalists.
The day was scheduled to conclude with Trump bidding Putin farewell at 4:45 a.m., followed by an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity and departure from Alaska at 5:45 a.m. The document also added a detail: Trump would present Putin with a gift: a "tabletop statue of a bald eagle."
Between pages 2 and 5, the names and phone numbers of three American officials were listed, as well as the names of 13 American and Russian leaders—the latter accompanied by a note on how they should be pronounced.
Pages 6 and 7 already listed the lunch menu, "in honor of His Excellency Vladimir Putin," which was ultimately canceled. The plan was to serve three courses: a green salad; filet mignon or Olympia halibut (a popular Alaskan fish dish), accompanied by potatoes and asparagus; and crème brûlée for dessert. The seating chart shows that Putin and Trump were to sit across from each other during lunch.
When asked by NRP about the discovery of the documents, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly downplayed the matter, describing the documents as a "multi-page menu" and suggesting that this did not constitute a security breach. The U.S. State Department did not comment on the matter.
observador
