NPR: Summit U-S Docs Found On Hotel Printer

U-S Government documents detailing meeting schedules, seating arrangements, an elaborate menu, and a note to pronounce President Vladimir Putin’s name as “POO-tihn” were mistakenly left in a hotel printer in Anchorage, Alaska, during President Donald Trump’s summit with the Russian leader, NPR reported.

Found around 9 a.m. in an Anchorage hotel printer, hours before the summit at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, the State Department-marked documents were shared with NPR by hotel guests. 

They included precise meeting times, locations, government staff phone numbers, and details of a planned but unheld three-course lunch, including the presidents’ designated chairs.

Produced by federal staff, the documents contained some publicly released information, like lunch and news conference plans, but also sensitive details typically withheld until after the event, such as room schedules for Trump and whether gifts were exchanged. 

For security, presidential movements and seating arrangements for meetings with world leaders are usually kept confidential until they occur. Such security lapses are typically treated as international incidents and prompt investigations.

Around 9 a.m. on Friday, three guests at the four-star Hotel Captain Cook, located 20 minutes from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where U.S. and Russian leaders met, discovered documents left in a public hotel printer. NPR reviewed photos of the documents taken by one guest, who remained anonymous due to fears of retaliation.

The Trump administration this weekend downplayed a report that officials left in a public area of a hotel documents describing the confidential movements of President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during their meeting in Alaska on Friday. The documents were produced by the Office of the Chief of Protocol, a position held by Monica Crowley, a former Fox News personality who served in Trump’s first term.