During a press conference on Friday, White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, revealed that United States President Donald Trump is giving $100,000 from his own quarterly salary as a donation to the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to McEnany, Trump is donating in order to help DHHS in the development of drugs, therapies, and vaccines to combat and prevent coronavirus disease from further spreading in the US.
McEnany, showed a cheque amounting to $100,000 in the briefing and said that it directly came from a portion of Trump's salary which he does not claim, instead he gives to different causes, especially during this time of a pandemic. The White House press secretary showed what looked like a full-page check that has already been signed.
Trump's Banking Details Exposed
However, the intent to highlight the noble efforts of President Trump seemed to have backfired on them as during the show and tell of the cheque, McEnany accidentally displayed personal banking details of the leader of the nation where the world's largest economy is.
While people lauded the efforts of Trump, the check that was shown during the press conference contained complete details about Trump's banking account and it cameras from the press were quick to take photos of the cheque.
After the reveal, speculations about the legitimacy of the cheque arose since some of the details
contained in there were supposed to be confidential and that the White House staff are usually more careful than that.
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According to an administration official who talked to the New York Times, the check used during the said briefing were legitimate as they do not use mock cheques. They also added during the statement that the media should have focused on the nobility of the act rather than focus on whether the cheque is real or not. Moreover, they called out the media for making speculations instead of simply reporting facts.
The incident caused alarm since revealing the said bank account information can make the President's account vulnerable to hackers and money phishers. However, some media outlets did the initiative to crop out important information on the cheque before posting it on their websites.
According to a professor from the University of Notre Dame who teaches information technology, this incident revealed the real reason why during television game shows and programs, large promotional cheques. The reason being it does not only look good on stage but these large cheques also do not contain confidential banking information. Thus, he said that the White House could have been more careful not to reveal Trump's account details to the world.
Making good on a promise
While the reveal may have exposed the president to an accidental security risk, the donation showed how he made good on his promise to donate his entire salary to different government agencies instead of keeping. During his campaign in 2016, Trump said that his entire salary of $400,000 will not go to his pocket except for $ only to abide by the requirements of the constitution that he needs to be paid.
Every quarter, it is revealed which government agency will be receiving the portion of the president's salary.
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