When Donald Trump was President of America he had made over a dozen calls to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. However, he always remained tightlipped over those conversations. Multiple reports says that he had kept notes of those conversations in a specific computer.
On Tuesday Politico reported that Joe Biden could see those calls as he is the current President. A former White official said that their approval was not needed to see those calls. He said that Biden owned all the call materials and that there was only one President.
Although the Biden administration did not say that they have accessed the calls the National Security Council did not complain about not having access to call records from the previous administration.
Trump had closely guarded his conversations with world leaders including Putin and Saudi Arabian officials, going to the extent of hiding them in the NSC’s code word system to prevent leaks. However, the Biden administration needs to gain access to see what Trump may or may not have promised world leaders, not just Putin.
When calls were not recorded, aides remained online and took notes. These short notes were called memcons or memorandum of conversations.
Another official said that memcons were considered to be presidential records. They could not be deleted. They were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administered (NARA) as per custom, when a President finished his term.
The official mentioned that they did not delete anything and that these memcons were accessible and available at the NARA.
The Biden and Trump NSC staff coordinated on many issues including Russia. There was a smooth transition of information and materials despite the rare official who said that there should be privileged information between a President and his immediate staff “without being subject to partisan gamesmanship.”
Biden had made a call to Putin after assuming office. The call dwelt on asking Russia not to meddle with the elections, cyber hacking and the opposition leader Alexei Navalny detention and poisoning.
