'Outrageous': Ex-Trump campaign lawyer blasts 'sloppy' admin. as SSNs leaked in JFK files
A former lawyer for President Donald Trump's campaign expressed fury as the personal information of hundreds of congressional staffers was mistakenly included in a massive document dump related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration released a vast collection of documents surrounding the Kennedy assassination. The release included approximately 63,000 pages of records and came in response to an executive order issued by Trump in January.
But also included in the documents: the Social Security numbers and other private information of more than 400 former congressional staffers and others, according to a review by The Washington Post.
Former Trump campaign lawyer Joseph diGenova, 80, whose information was among those included, expressed outrage over the flub.
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“It’s absolutely outrageous. It’s sloppy, unprofessional,” diGenova told the Post.
He added: “It not only means identity theft, but I’ve had threats against me. In the past, I’ve had to report real threats against me to the FBI. There are dangerous nuts out there.”
A former assistant secretary of state, a former U.S. ambassador, researchers in the intelligence world, State Department workers and well-known lawyers were also impacted, according to the Post.
Loch Johnson, a retired intelligence expert and professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, echoed diGenova's sentiments.
“It’s astonishing that our personal information is now just out there for anyone to see. Someone dropped the ball,” said Johnson. “I hope they weren’t as sloppy in the JFK files with covert agents and assets overseas.”
The White House raced to correct the error after being alerted by the Post, according to the report. National Archives began screening the documents for affected numbers so that the Social Security Administration could alert impacted citizens and assign them new numbers, a White House official told the news outlet.
“President Trump delivered on his promise of maximum transparency by fully releasing the files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Post in a statement. “At the request of the White House, the National Archives and the Social Security Administration immediately put together an action plan to pro-actively help individuals whose personal information was released in the files.”
Legal experts also laid into the administration over the mishap.
"Social Security is literally the keys to the kingdom to everybody,” Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security, told the outlet. “It’s absolutely a Privacy Act violation.”