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Administration Errors

Timeline

2017.01.27Trump is using a dangerously insecure, out-of-date Android device as his phone. lawfareblog.com (See also Technology)
Anyone around the President should presume they are being actively recorded by hostile powers, unless they are absolutely positive the phone is out of the room.
2017.01.28Trump lashes out in phone call with Australian prime minister, threatening diplomatic rift, and later blames Obama administration. nytimes.com (See also Australia, First 100 Days)
2017.02.01Former Norwegian prime minister is detained at Dulles Airport for because he traveled to Iran for a human rights conference in 2014. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigration, Muslim Immigration Ban)
2017.02.02U.S. military officials say Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations, leading to civilian and U.S. deaths. mobile.reuters.com (See also Yemen, First 100 Days)
2017.02.03The Pentagon said this video shows a raid in Yemen was successful. It's a decade old. buzzfeed.com (See also Yemen, Assaults on Facts)
The video was initially heralded as proof that the raid in Yemen, in which a US military operator was killed along with several civilians, was a success.
2017.02.05Improvisation proves costly for stumbling Trump administration; leaks show Trump unaware of everything in his executive orders. nytimes.com (See also Presidential Activity)
2017.02.06Trump's team is holding meetings in the dark because they can't figure out how to work the light switches in The White House. independent.co.uk (See also First 100 Days)
2017.02.07Trump's memo on "underreported" attacks misspelled the words "attack" or "attackers" 27 times. washingtonpost.com (See also First 100 Days)
2017.02.08Yemen, angry with civilian casualties after raid, suspends permission for U.S. to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terrorist groups there—a huge setback for Trump. nytimes.com (See also Yemen)
2017.02.16Robert Harward, Trump’s pick to replace Flynn, turns down the job. nytimes.com (See also National Security, #Analysis)
2017.03.17The White House links a satire news piece in their daily briefing as evidence that Trump's budget plan makes sense. washingtonpost.com (See also First 100 Days)
2017.06.07Trump will nominate Christopher Wray as the next director of the FBI, which came as a surprise to powerful senators, including the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and the committee’s ranking Democrat, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had not been given advance notification from the White House, even though their committee will handle his confirmation hearing. politico.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior)
2017.06.17Republicans won't work for the Trump administration. washingtonpost.com (See also Trump Cabinet, Federal Departments)
Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obama’s first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition.
2017.06.22Trump called for a new law barring immigrants from receiving welfare for at least five years, but didn't realize that the law has already existed for more than 20 years. usatoday.com (See also Immigration)
2017.06.27A Time magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake news. washingtonpost.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior, Attempts to Discredit Media)
2017.06.27The White House issued a statement Monday evening threatening to exact "a heavy price" in response to a potential chemical attack by the Syrian government, but senior national security officials were caught off guard and had no idea a statement was coming that threatened military action - a major step. nbcnews.com (See also Syria, Department of State, Rex Tillerson, Nikki Haley)
2017.07.09Trump floated, then seemingly disavowed, a deal for greater cybersecurity with Russia - an idea that drew dismay and mockery from lawmakers of both parties, and which analysts warned could make the US less secure. politico.com (See also Russian Meddling in Election, Rex Tillerson)
2017.07.10The US military has received no guidance on how to enforce the ceasefire now in place in southwest Syria, even as the Trump administration hails it as a success. buzzfeed.com (See also Foreign Policy, Syria, Department of Defense, H.R. McMaster)
“You’d think we would be a part of it,” one US military official explained.
2017.07.13In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Justice Department released Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s SF-86 security-clearance that shows he denied having any contact with foreign governments or their representatives. theatlantic.com (See also Jeff Sessions, Russia, Michael Flynn)
He did.
2017.07.14Today, the C.B.O. reported that the same White House budget that the administration claimed would result in a $16 billion surplus by 2027 would actually result in a $720 billion deficit. vanityfair.com
2017.07.18Trump met with Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a second time at the G20 summit, where they had a private one-on-one discussion over dinner that lasted as long as an hour and relied solely on a Kremlin-provided interpreter. nytimes.com (See also Russia, Trump Relationship with Russia, Foreign Policy)
2017.07.27The White House has changed the transcript of Anthony Scaramucci's first press conference to say that Trump sinks "30-foot putts" instead of the "three foot putts" that he claimed at the time. dailydot.com (See also Attempts to Discredit Media, Unpresidential Behavior)
2017.09.10Donald Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino, spent the day sharing with the world videos of Hurricane Irma’s fury in Florida - even fraudulent ones that had to be corrected by the Miami International Airport. washingtonpost.com (See also False Statements)
2017.10.03Despite Donald Trump saying that Puerto Rico's debt would be "wiped out," his budget chief, Mick Mulvaney said that we should not take the president's words literally. bloomberg.com (See also False Statements, Mick Mulvaney, Office of Management and Budget)
2017.10.05White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, raising concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly’s phone while he was secretary of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing. politico.com (See also John Kelly, Department of Homeland Security)