[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 86 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H4726-H4727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRUMP'S MOBILE SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Ted Lieu) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I am here with Congressman 
Ruben Gallego. I would like to talk about national security and how the 
President of the United States may be inadvertently giving away 
classified information.
  The President, through public reporting, shows that he is unwilling 
to swap out his cell phones. There is a big problem with this.
  Last term, I was involved with this flaw called the SS7 flaw. It is 
something that allows foreign powers and criminal syndicates affiliated 
with foreign powers to listen in on your cell phone just knowing your 
cell phone number, and there is no real good way to stop it. Our 
concern is that if the President finds it too inconvenient to deal with 
this issue of his cell phones, then his conversations could be listened 
in on by other foreign nations or by criminal syndicates.
  We also find this somewhat ironic and hypocritical when the 
Republican-

[[Page H4727]]

controlled Congress, last term, went to great lengths to talk about the 
potential damage of having a private email server for Secretary of 
State Hillary Clinton. This is a very similar concept. These are cell 
phones from which foreign powers can get the actual conversations of 
the President of the United States.
  We just want the White House, the Secret Service, and other agencies 
to talk to the President and say: Look, you just have to deal with 
operational security. You are their most highly-valued target in terms 
of intelligence information that foreign powers want; and, please, for 
our national security, swap out your cell phones.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego).
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, I came down to the floor today to give a 
gentle reminder and a wake-up call to Chairman Gowdy and to Speaker 
Ryan. I know they have a lot going on. The Speaker is flying out to do 
a fundraiser today. But I want to make sure he actually understood that 
what we know, also from multiple media outlets, is that this President 
is using a phone that is potentially compromising national security.
  Rather than use the best, most secure communication technology in the 
world, President Trump just reaches into his pocket and pulls out his 
regular off-the-shelf phone when he wants to discuss matters of state. 
Now, he can switch to another phone, a government-provided phone, one 
that is secure, and he can still even tweet from that phone, but, for 
some reason, he is still stuck on this phone that is a national 
security risk.
  Why would the leader of the free world, and our Commander in Chief, 
expose sensitive communication to foreign intelligence agencies?
  Why would he act in such a reckless, negligent manner?
  Well, according to news reports, the simple answer is that Donald 
Trump uses his personal cell phone because he just feels like it; it is 
more convenient for him. Forget the rules and forget the warnings from 
the military. He just does what he wants and ignores the consequences.
  I want to highlight this story for Chairman Gowdy and Speaker Ryan 
because I know they care deeply about data security at the highest 
level of our government. After all, when Secretary Clinton was found to 
have used her personal email server, they launched multiple, month-long 
investigations. They spent millions of tax dollars conducting five 
emergency hearings, including four, coincidentally, right before the 
election, and ended up issuing more than 70 subpoenas.

  Their efforts helped generate huge amounts of media coverage. In one 
6-day period, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about 
Hillary Clinton's emails as they did about all of the policy issues 
combined in the 69 days leading up to the election.
  But now that President Trump's widely irresponsible use of his 
personal cell phone has been exposed, now that we know he could be 
exposing America's secrets to our gravest enemies, surely my Republican 
friends are going to be just as worried about data security as they 
were in the past and conduct some oversight. Surely, they will. They 
surely will demand and request all the documents, hold hearings, and 
question witnesses. Surely. They will want to get to the bottom of this 
scandal as soon as possible.
  Prior to the election, Chairman Gowdy explained to the reporters:

       This investigation is not about politics. This is not even 
     about one individual.

  If it wasn't about politics, and if it wasn't just about stopping 
Hillary Clinton, the Speaker of the House and the chairman of the 
Oversight and Government Reform Committee should certainly feel 
interested in investigating the President's cell phone use. And yet, 
coincidentally, they have been completely silent. Not one press 
statement, not one letter, not one word of warning to the White House.
  It is almost as if they have no interest in conducting real oversight 
of this President. It is almost as if they are more interested in 
helping this President than holding him accountable. It is almost as if 
this Republican Party has completely lost its moral compass under this 
President.
  Mr. Speaker, perhaps my good friend, Congressman Ted Lieu, could shed 
some light on more of these troubling issues for me.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gallego 
for his comments.
  Both of us served Active Duty in the United States military--
Congressman Gallego served in combat--and we both know that one of the 
most important things to our military is operational security and 
protecting our communications and making sure that they are secure.

                              {time}  1115

  Donald Trump is the Commander in Chief of our military. If there is 
anyone that needs to have their communications secure, it has got to be 
our Commander in Chief.
  Unfortunately, the President and the Republicans here that enable him 
are allowing him to have unsecured communications. That is really going 
to be harmful to our national security.
  This is not some sort of theoretical flaw that exists. The Federal 
Communications Commission has issued a report saying that this flaw 
where foreign powers can listen in on our cell phone communications is 
real, it exists.
  People have used it not just to listen in, but also to do nefarious 
things. A bank earlier this year lost millions of dollars because of 
this flaw.
  So, again, we urge the President and the Republicans here to change 
the President's behavior, to do oversight on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to conclude this segment. I thank you for 
listening.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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