New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who first brought President Donald Trump's relationship with aide Natalie Harp to light in her book about the White House staff, offered new details about Harp's role — and raised questions about the security of the president's cell phone — during a CNN appearance.

Harp, a former One America News Network host, joined Trump's 2020 campaign before moving into the White House as a special assistant to the president. During Trump's first term, she was widely reported to carry a portable printer so she could show him favorable news coverage, and her round-the-clock availability has long set her apart within his orbit.

According to Haberman, people she has spoken to in Trump's world describe Harp as someone who "doesn't do much outside of work. She works constantly for him." That kind of constant attention represents a "huge amount of value" to Trump, who frequently relies on aides to make him feel better.

"I described her the other day as, as you know, a binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket," Haberman said. "There are men who have played that role for him too. One of them would be Boris Epstein, about whom, you know, his legal adviser, you know, of whom the president describes him as his psychiatrist."

Haberman quoted Trump saying, "Sometimes you just want somebody to tell you everything is going to be okay. That is a lot of what the president values."

CNN host Wolf Blitzer raised the national security concerns surrounding Harp and her clearance issues. As MS NOW's Jake Traylor and Jacqueline Alemany reported Wednesday, it took Harp more than a year to complete her clearance paperwork. The reasons remain unknown, but the president personally intervened on her behalf.

"So, our understanding is that she does have a security clearance. We haven't independently corroborated that she was delayed on her SF-86 forms to get a longer-term one," Haberman said. "She came in ... with a temporary clearance, the way that most other people working in the White House did."

Interim clearances are a routine part of White House onboarding, but they became a flashpoint during Trump's first term, when congressional investigators found that dozens of aides — including senior adviser Jared Kushner — operated on temporary clearances long after the standard background-review process had played out.

Haberman noted that Trump is widely known to communicate on a cell phone whose number "everybody has," including world leaders. Presidential communications security has been a recurring issue: reporting during Trump's first term described aides urging him to rely on the White House's secure landline instead of personal phones, and past presidents such as Barack Obama used heavily modified devices stripped of most consumer features.

"That includes a bunch of people. And, you know, we don't quite know exactly how secure that phone is. I think the bigger issue that people have had about concerns is just her level of, of, you know, intense devotion to him. And that was what became a question for the Secret Service," she said.

Haberman added that the White House appears to be realizing it made matters worse by "elevat[ing] attention around Natalie Harp by bushing back on Jon Ossoff and going further than what Ossoff had said about their relationship themselves."

Ossoff — Georgia's junior Democratic senator — had remarked that all Trump wanted to do was "build his ballroom and fly around with Natalie," a reference to Trump's long-stated push to add a ballroom to the White House. GOP apologists and MAGA allies quickly began talking about an affair and claiming Ossoff was "insinuating" something.

"But there's also, you know, the way a president's world functions and, you know, this who is around him, who helps provide him with information that is going to be of interest and importance in any administration," Haberman said. "She's a government employee. It should not be a surprise."

CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene echoed those comments, saying some in the White House now admit "that some of those more aggressive posts defending Harp actually had the adverse effect of drawing more attention to this relationship and dragging this story out."

Source: Alternet