Eight pages of documents detailing U.S. plans to “honor” Russian President Vladimir Putin during Trump’s failed summit with the world leader were left behind in the business center of a hotel in Alaska.
NPR reported that the papers, which have not been confirmed as authentic, included U.S. State Department markings and were found on a public printer around 9 a.m. by guests at the four-star Hotel Captain Cook. Several of the pages note they were “Produced by the Office of the Chief of Protocol.” This is Monica Crowley, who took her position in May.
The hotel is around 20 minutes away from where Putin and Trump convened at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, NPR reported.
In addition to literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin, the documents reveal that the summit lunch was also designed “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin.”
The documents share precise locations and meeting time schedules allegedly for the summit, including phone numbers of U.S. government employees, and plans for Trump to gift Putin an “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue” on one page.
Also listed on the documents are the names of Russian leaders with phonetic spellings for their names, such as “Mr. President POO-tihn,” NPR reported.
Diving deeper into the logistics of the summit, the pages also included a seating chart for lunch, with Trump joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on his right and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff on his left.
Similarly, according to pages 6 and 7, Putin would be flanked by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and Aide to the President for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov.
NPR posted a menu that included a “green salad” with “champagne vinaigrette” paired with surf and turf consisting of a filet mignon with “brandy peppercorn sauce” and “buttery whipped potatoes and roasted asparagus” with halibut, a fish found in Russia’s arctic waters.
For something sweet, crème brûlée was reportedly planned for dessert. Yet in a sour turn of events, the lunch was for some reason called off.
Crème brûlée aside, the contents of the unverified pages could mark the latest security flub out of the Trump administration on the heels of its very public Signalgate scandal in March.
After The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added to a chat discussing sensitive attack plans among top defense and intelligence officials—including Hegseth, Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—the Trump administration insisted no “sensitive” information had been shared.
Nonetheless, the scandal has eroded trust in the administration’s abilities, said UCLA professor and lecturer on national security Jon Michaels.
“It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration,” Michaels told NPR. “You just don’t leave things in printers. It’s that simple.”
In an emailed statement to the Daily Beast, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly wrote, “It’s hilarious that NPR is publishing a multi-page lunch menu and calling it a ‘security breach.’ This type of self-proclaimed ‘investigative journalism’ is why no one takes them seriously and they are no longer taxpayer-funded thanks to President Trump.”
