White House Aides Were Reportedly Worried About Donald Trump's Handling Of Classified Information As President, New Book Reveals

An upcoming book written by a former Donald Trump administration aide reveals an incident where officials expressed concerns about the ex-president’s casual approach to handling classified information during interactions with media.

What Happened: Miles Taylor, who served as a former top aide to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, recounts an episode from 2018 in an upcoming book set to be published this month, NBC News reported, citing a copy obtained by the publication. 

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As president, Trump had the authority to declassify information. However, Taylor's account recounts how the former president's handling of classified information raised concerns among his aides during his time at the White House. 

"We were all disturbed by the lapse in protocol and poor protection of classified information," Taylor writes in the book.

Taylor also revealed that Trump expressed interest in “tapping” the phones of White House aides as a strategy to prevent press leaks.

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A Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said, "Miles Taylor is a loser and a lying sack of s— His book either belongs in the discount bin of the fiction section or should be repurposed as toilet paper."

Why It Matters: Taylor, the author of the infamous "Anonymous" New York Times op-ed, once triggered a relentless hunt for the unidentified critic within the Trump administration. He later showed his support for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and eventually revealed himself as the person behind the "Anonymous" pseudo name.

Meanwhile, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly confirmed in an interview with the publication that Trump had indeed entertained the idea of tapping phones to identify leakers, but Kelly resisted the proposal and it was never implemented.

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