Biden now has access to all of the phone conversations with Putin that Trump went to great lengths to conceal
- As president, Joe Biden now has access to notes from Donald Trump's calls with Vladimir Putin.
- A former Trump official told Politico that Biden "owns" the notes.
- The Biden White House did not say whether it had reviewed these memos yet.
During Donald Trump's four years as president, he was extremely guarded about his phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which numbered to at least a dozen. According to multiple reports, he kept notes from those calls in a top-secret computer system and delayed telling the American public about conversations.
But he won't be able to hide what was said from President Joe Biden.
Politico reported on Tuesday that each new US president has access to the full memorandums of conversation - or "memcons" - written during past presidencies.
A former Trump White House official told Politico that Biden's national security team wouldn't "need our approval" to see the records, which consist of detailed notes taken during calls with world leaders.
"Biden owns all the call materials. There is only one president at a time," the former Trump official said.
One former Trump White House official told Politico that the records were not expunged before Trump left office but transferred - as is custom - to the National Archives and Records Administration.
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The Biden White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. It also did not comment to Politico on whether it had seen the content of Trump's calls with Putin.
But a former national security official, described as being close to Biden, told Politico: "It is a national security priority to find out what Trump said to Putin."
"Some things, like what happened in some face-to-face meetings where no American translator or note-taker was present, may never be fully known," the source added. "But I would be very surprised if the new national security team were not trying to access" them.
But a former Trump White House official didn't agree with that logic, telling Politico: "There are certain things a president and his immediate staff should be able to hold privileged to do the work of government, without being subject to constant partisan gamesmanship."
In atypical fashion for an American president, Trump had a markedly warm relationship with Putin, often lauding the Russian president's leadership style.
The Trump-Putin relationship contributed to questions about whether Russia's interference in the 2016 US election included help from Trump's campaign.
An investigation into the matter, conducted by the special counsel Robert Mueller, acted as a specter over much of Trump's time in office, but Mueller ultimately said there was not enough evidence to charge anyone from the Trump campaign with illegally conspiring or coordinating with the Russian government.
Biden's first call with Putin seems to have marked a change in tone from the White House. During the call, Biden is said to have pressed Putin on Russian election interference, the SolarWinds hack, and the poisoning of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.