Classified documents with State Department symbols, found Friday morning in an Alaska hotel, have revealed previously unknown details about the August 15 summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The documents, which are suspected of being accidentally left behind, contain sensitive data such as meeting times and locations, as well as contact numbers of American officials.
The documents were found around 9 a.m. in the printer of the business center at a four-star hotel located about 20 minutes from the base where the summit took place.
The first page of the documents describes in detail the order of the August 15 meetings, including the names of the specific rooms within the base where the meetings would take place.
MENU
Documents circulated at the Alaska Summit between the American and Russian delegations included a 7-page brochure detailing the agenda, the menu for the joint lunch that the two presidents and their staffs would consume, and President Trump's gift to the Kremlin chief.
The document was drafted by the Office of the White House Chief of Protocol.
The luncheon, which was scheduled to be held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, where the Trump-Putin meeting took place, was to be held in honor of the Russian President. It was canceled after the press conference and the delegations left Alaska.
The menu called for a green salad with a mixture of champagne, mustard, honey and salt. Then came the beef tenderloin, with a sauce of black pepper and cognac. The fillet would be accompanied by a traditional Alaskan dish, a fried tongue with onions, white wine and butter, and served with potatoes and roasted asparagus.
The lunch would end with the famous dessert "creme brulee" (cream bryle - cream with burnt sugar), while the brochure does not contain any information about the drinks that would be consumed.
Gifts
The two protocols also exchanged gifts. The White House Chief of Staff gave his counterpart a statue of an eagle, a symbol of the official US coat of arms, to be placed on the Kremlin's work desk.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly downplayed the documents, calling them "a multi-page lunch menu," adding that there was no serious security breach.
Meanwhile, John Michaels, a law professor and expert on national security issues, considered the incident "as further evidence of the administration's carelessness and incompetence."