The House Republican stunt to storm a secure area where an impeachment deposition was taking place Wednesday wasn’t just a distraction — it was also a national security risk.
Many of the GOP members of Congress who broke into the deposition were carrying electronic devices that are strictly prohibited in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where the deposition was taking place. Cellphones are banned in the SCIF because there is often classified information in the room, and cellphones can be hacked by hostile actors who want that classified information.
“I held a [Top Secret security clearance] for a decade. You know what literally rule number one was? No cell phones in a SCIF,” Naveed Jamali, a national security expert, tweeted. “Anything that transmits and can record video or audio is specifically forbidden. If you break these rules you might as well drop the ‘S’ (secure) in SCIF.”
View the complete October 24 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.