Menu revealed – found among secret papers

Vladimir Putin

Government documents about the summit have been found – in hotel printer

Emelie Svensson

Updated 23.13 | Published 23.03

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA. Secret papers were found in a printer at a hotel in Anchorage.

They revealed new details about Trump and Putin's summit, according to NPR.

Aftonbladet went to the discovery site in search of answers.

In a small windowless room, with brown walls and thick beige carpeting, there are two computers and a few trash cans.

And in the corner – the hotel's printer.

A hidden device that has come into unexpected focus after Trump's summit with Putin.

           

           

          The printer at the Hotel Captain Cook has come into unexpected focus.

          1 / 2Photo: Emelie Svensson

Secret lunch menu

Three guests at the Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel just 20 minutes from the Elmendorf-Richardson military base where the meeting was held, discovered the documents at 9 a.m. Friday morning, according to information provided to NPR.

Documents that turned out to be related to the summit in the city.

Among the information: a lunch menu in honor of "his excellency" Vladimir Putin - filet mignon, halibut and crème brûlée for dessert. A lunch that never happened.

 

Outside the 4-star Hotel Captain Cook. Photo: Emelie Svensson

But the pile also contained more sensitive information. It included the order of the summit, the names of the rooms where the talks were held on the base, and contact information for American personnel. The documents also listed 13 high-ranking American and Russian officials.

There were also instructions on how to pronounce the Russian president’s name – “Mr. President POO-tihn.”

 

This is how the Russian president’s name should be pronounced. Photo: Screenshot

According to Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor who lectures on national security, the sloppy papers reveal a lack of professional judgment in the face of a high-stakes meeting.

“It strikes me as further evidence of the administration’s carelessness and incompetence,” Michaels told NPR.

“You simply don’t leave things in the printing house. It’s that simple.”

“Heard something from a guest”

It’s still unclear who forgot the papers.

When Aftonbladet visited the hotel on Saturday, the day after the documents were found, it was bustling with guests eating pancakes and omelets for breakfast.

In the lobby, the staff confirms that there is only one public printer – but they look questioningly at the information that secret papers have been found just a few meters away.

 

Lunch menu revealed. Photo: Screenshot

– Here? I haven't heard anything about that, says one employee and disappears to ask colleagues. Without result.

– Well, I heard something from a guest, says another.

No one at the hotel wants to make an official statement about the find either.

In the trash cans around the printer, we only find crumpled sheets of paper about tourist cruises – no new traces of documents from Trump's meeting with Putin.

White House press secretary Anna Kelly has dismissed the leak to NPR and does not see it as a security breach.