White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has been walking around with a compromised personal cell phone since December, according to government officials.
Kelly was secretary of Homeland Security between late January and Late July, when he took the second most powerful job in the West Wing.
It’s unknown whether foreign governments or hackers could have had access to his communications, including internal White House information.
White House computer staff identified a breach after Kelly handed in his cell phone, asking for tech support help, according to Politico.
Kelly said at the time that his personal phone hadn’t been working properly for months – a tell-tale sign that it may have been hijacked by malware that gave outsiders access to the device’s secrets.
White House officials believe Chief of Staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, raising concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on the phone, it was reported Thursday. Kelly is seen above in New York last month
Kelly also has an official government phone, which appears to have not been affected.
And he has claimed that he has seldom used the compromised personal phone since taking a job in the White House.
A White House official told Politico that Kelly no longer has possession of the suspect phone, but has two different devices now – a personal cell phone and a government device that he uses most of the time.
Politico reported that many functions on Kelly’s wonky phone were not working.
The executive branch department determined that the phone had been compromised and should not be used any more, according to a memo circulated this week inside the White House.
News of Kelly’s phone was reported days after it was learned that current and former White House staffers – among them top aides including Gary Cohn (left), Jared Kushner (center), and Ivanka Trump (right) used their personal emails to conduct official government business
Officials worried about the depths of information that might have been compromised.
News of Kelly’s phone was reported days after it was learned that a number of current and former White House staffers used their personal emails to conduct official government business.
One day after it was first reported that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner used his personal email account while working as an employee of the federal government, current and former officials told The New York Times that at least five other colleagues did the same.
Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife and the president’s daughter, used a personal email account to communicate with government officials in February when she had an informal White House role, it was revealed last week.
It was also learned that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon; top economic adviser Gary Cohn; another top policy adviser, Stephen Miller; and former chief of staff Reince Priebus also corresponded using their private email account.
The news is significant considering the president’s withering criticism of Hillary Clinton for her use of a private home email server during the campaign.
Both Trump relatives are key White House advisors who accepted unpaid roles in the administration.
Government officials are legally required to conduct official business through a government-issued email so that the communications can be made available to the public.