CNN
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As Donald Trump conducts a free-wheeling transition from his Mar-a-Lago estate, drawing flocks of business moguls, contractors, foreign dignitaries and anyone looking for jobs in the new administration, the federal agencies charged with protecting the president-elect and his communications face a daunting task.
Security at Mar-a-Lago has already ramped up since the election. The Secret Service has increased its footprint around the residence and private club, and now deploys robot dogs capable of surveillance and detecting explosive material. Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard patrols the nearby waterways.
But with no restrictions on who Mar-a-Lago club members can bring as guests, the chaotic scene presents a unique counterintelligence and security challenge that sources told CNN is almost impossible to fully prepare for.
Trump enters his second term as president facing an unprecedented combination of targeted cyber and physical threats. China has tried to hack the communications of Trump and his inner circle. Iran has allegedly tried to kill him. And during the campaign, Trump survived two separate assassination attempts.
Unwelcome guests have been a security issue before at Mar-a-Lago. Since July, a Chinese national has been arrested multiple times for trying to get onto the property. Yet sources told CNN that there’s only so much they can do to ratchet up security there.
“We can’t put him in a bubble,” one Secret Service official told CNN, adding that “everyone’s waiting” to see what the coming presidency will look like and what security challenges lay ahead.
Holden Triplett, a former FBI counterintelligence official who served in China and Russia, told CNN that foreign powers’ attempts to spy on the Trump transition team will be relentless.
“China has and will continue to look for ways to penetrate Trump’s inner circle,” said Triplett, who was also director for counterintelligence at the National Security Council during the last Trump administration. “They want to avoid crippling tariffs at all costs and will be looking for ways to influence and ultimately cut a deal with the administration.”
“Iran sees almost no chance of a deal and will likely want to inflict costs on the administration to keep it out of the Middle East,” Triplett added.
Iranian officials have denied allegations of assassination plots against Trump.
A Chinese wiretap
Top of mind for the Trump transition team is a robust Chinese hacking operation that US officials only recently uncovered. The hackers are effectively trying to wiretap the calls and texts of top US political figures, including Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and senior members of the Biden administration.
During the presidential campaign, Trump’s team operated under the assumption that the Chinese hackers had access to Trump and Vance’s phone communications, CNN previously reported.
The sophistication of the effort has rattled senior US national security officials and prompted the Trump transition team to take countermeasures to try to keep the Chinese spies from listening in on the president-elect’s calls with world leaders. (Beijing has denied involvement in the hacking)
The FBI has recommended that senior people in Trump’s orbit change phone numbers, but that measure “buys us a very short window of anonymity” before the hackers find a target’s new phone number, a person familiar with Trump’s security arrangements told CNN.
The transition team is constantly rotating which phones senior staff use to try to keep the Chinese guessing, the person said. There are more-in person meetings at Mar-a-Lago rather than phone calls in part because of concerns about relentless Chinese surveillance.
“They’re trying to piece together what the administration is going to look like,” the person said of Chinese efforts to spy on Trump and his team.
Another complication is that the Trump transition team has yet to sign the paperwork needed for a classified briefing from the Biden administration, limiting their own understanding of the Chinese hacking operation, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The FBI has given the Trump team a handful of names of people whose phone communications were targeted by the hackers, sources briefed on the matter have told CNN. Aside from Trump and Vance, the names include Trump’s son Eric and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Trump attorney Todd Blanche, CNN has reported.
It’s not practical, however, for the Trump transition team to try to lock down phone communications for every aide or even senior adviser.
“You can invest in secure cell phones for some principals but never a large number,” said a former US official who worked on cybersecurity during a previous presidential transition.
Secret Service tensions
Trump’s return to the White House comes amid a strained relationship with top brass at the Secret Service following his near assassination in July.
Morale within the agency has plummeted, according to former and current officials, after a hectic campaign season that stretched the agency thin, requiring hours of overtime and re-assignments for scores of agents.
The fate of acting Director Ronald Rowe remains up in the air. Rowe has been trying to get a meeting with Trump on the books for next week, but nothing has been scheduled, sources familiar with the planning told CNN.
Some in the agency expect Trump to replace Rowe, potentially with someone from his own detail.
A meeting with Rowe could focus on Trump’s transition in security as he takes over the presidency but would also afford Rowe one last chance to show Trump the changes he’s made to the agency and fight for the job he’s had for the last three months.
No matter who is charge, the Secret Service will have to grapple with how best to protect a president who may choose to divide his time between the White House and several of his properties around the US.
During his first term, the Secret Service spent tens of millions of dollars securing Trump Tower, Trump’s private home in Manhattan. Trump has since changed his residency to Florida and spends far more time at Mar-a-Lago. Securing the 20-acre compound in Palm Beach poses an even more daunting task, especially during a transition period in which outsiders seek to gain face-time with Trump, who remains eager to maintain his role as club host and president-in-waiting.
One guest in recent days said they reported another to the property’s security, claiming the visitor had an “unhinged” social media presence and was leaking private conversations, CNN previously reported.
It’s unclear what permanent security measures the Secret Service will need to put in place at Mar-a-Lago, but they would likely include more screenings of visitors and wider security perimeters around the private club.
“What I would anticipate is that at Mar-a-Lago, you will see in the golf courses and everything else, more enhanced screening procedures for all guests, all vehicles, all deliveries,” former Secret Service agent and CNN analyst Jonathan Wackrow told CNN, “whether you’re there to see the president or if you’re a member, it’ll be noticeably enhanced.”
But, Wackrow emphasized, the Secret Service is focused on protecting against physical threats, and not espionage or cyber surveillance, adding that staff members are in control of who is allowed into the club, not the agency.
“If there’s something clear that we know needs to be addressed, we’ll raise it with staff,” Wackrow added. “But if staff says, ‘Let them in,” we’re going to let them in. We’re not going to debate it.”
CNN previously reported that members of the club have been offered money by people to be taken in as guests, hoping to rub elbows with Trump.
One Secret Service official told CNN that Trump presents other unique security concerns, including through his sprawling family, which will take a large number of agents to protect.
The official noted how Trump’s granddaughter Kai published a video log of election night at Mar-a-Lago, a practice that could publicly reveal certain movement patterns of Trump and his family members.
Wackrow noted that most of Trump’s movements are public and the risk of video logs is minimal, adding that foreign actors have plenty of “digital exhaust” to sift through if they wanted to access that information.
“Very large-scale foreign intelligence operations such as the Iranians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the North Koreans, they’re looking beyond Trump’s granddaughter,” Wackrow said. “They’re looking at other data sets that are exposed and that they could exploit.”
During Trump’s first presidency, a strategy session held on a Mar-a-Lago patio with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe where the two discussed a response to North Korea’s missile test at the time drew intense scrutiny.
The conversation, with potentially sensitive documents being lit up by aides’ cell phone flashlights, was observed by other diners at the club, who looked freely on, CNN reported at the time.