http://t.co/jYfVVV7Qy7 — Politico (@politico) July 12, 2021 The New York Times reports: White House officials say the plan will allow the president to avoid the legal obligation to reveal any surveillance of foreign nationals, who the officials said would include those suspected of spying on the United States.
The plan, which would give the president broad authority to compel companies to turn over the contents of their servers and devices, would also permit him to unilaterally order the release of such records.
Under the plan, the executive order would also require companies to report data that has been collected, stored or shared with a foreign power to the government for a period of 90 days.
The president would also have broad authority under the plan to force companies to delete information stored in foreign servers or devices that are linked to the foreign power, which could include information on individuals, such as Social Security numbers.
The president could also use a broad subpoena to force the companies to hand over such information, officials said.
There is no evidence that Trump himself is a foreign agent, but the New York Post reports that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is a registered foreign agent who may have sought to get his father-in and son-on-law access to the Oval Office during the campaign.
According to the Post, Kushner’s lawyer recently wrote to a federal court that he has received a “series of requests from U.S. authorities” to review his son-and-daughter-in to determine whether they are agents of a foreign government.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump is not aware of any evidence that his son is a “foreign agent.”
The Trump administration has not provided any evidence to back up Trump’s claim that the executive orders are intended to undermine his predecessor Barack Obama’s surveillance efforts.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was fired after he was revealed as a foreign-agent for allegedly providing “incriminating and false” information to the FBI and the Justice Department about Russian contacts with Trump.
