In a major goof-up, US President Donald Trump's personal bank account details were revealed by the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, during a press briefing held at the White House.
A check bearing Trump's personal bank account details was displayed by the press secretary during an announcement about the President donating his quarterly salary to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Why Is Trump Donating His Salary?
During the 2016 campaign pledge, Trump had announced that he would be donating $100,000 from his salary, every quarter, to a government department of his liking. The New York Times stated that in the past, Trump has contributed $100,000, from his salary to the Small Business Administration initiative to help veteran entrepreneurs, to the Office of the Surgeon General to fight the opioid epidemic, and to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, among other places.
This time, the US President chose the Department of Health and Human Services to 'support the efforts being undertaken to confront, contain, and combat the coronavirus.' While making the announcement, McEnany displayed the Capitol One check showing the details of the donation made. The check also bore Trump's bank account and routing numbers. An official from the administration told the publication that mock checks are never used in the briefing, confirming the possibility of a check being an original one.
Is Trump's Bank Account Vulnerable to Online Hackers?
Confirming the possibility of Trump's a bank being equipped with certain additional protections in place on the account of a high-profile person like the president, Eva Velasquez, the president and chief executive of the Identity Theft Resource Center, told the Times: "It's not a best practice to share that information publicly. If you don't have protections in place, there are sophisticated schemes and ways someone could access those funds knowing the account and routing number and the individual person it belongs to."
"This is one of those situations where setting the example is very important. It's very important for your average person to understand this is not a best practice," she added maintaining that it not possible to hack an account based on the photographs of the check.
In a statement issued later, White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said: "Today his salary went to help advance new therapies to treat this virus, but leave it to the media to find a shameful reason not to simply report the facts, focusing instead on whether the check is real or not." Even though Trump's exact net worth is still unknown, in March, Forbes estimated that he had a fortune of $3.1 billion, as against the $4.1 billion predicted in 2015.
