Guests at an Anchorage hotel reportedly stumbled upon sensitive US government papers just hours before Donald Trump welcomed Vladimir Putin to their high-stakes Alaska summit.
According to NPR, the eight-page dossier believed to have been produced by the State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol was found around 9 a.m. Friday on a hotel printer at the Captain Cook, located 20 minutes from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where the summit was held.
The document outlined the Aug. 15 schedule in detail, including the exact rooms on base where meetings would take place, seating arrangements, and even phonetic spellings of Russian officials’ names such as “Mr President POO-tihn.” It also noted Trump’s plan to present Putin with an “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.”
The papers listed the names and contact numbers of three U.S. staffers, along with 13 U.S. and Russian officials expected to attend. They also included plans for a formal luncheon which ultimately did not go ahead.
According to the schedule, Trump would have been flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on his right, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. To his left would have been Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and special envoy Steve Witkoff. The menu featured green salad, filet mignon, halibut Olympia, and crème brûlée.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the reports, calling the papers nothing more than a “multi-page lunch menu,” and denied that their discovery posed any security risk.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott was equally dismissive, saying: “Instead of covering the historic steps towards peace achieved at Friday’s summit, NPR is trying to make a story out of a lunch menu. Ridiculous.”
Trump-Putin’s Alaska summit concludes without ceasefire
The New Daily Prime reported earlier that the summit held between Trump and Putin last Friday in Anchorage, Alaska ended without ceasefire.
The seven hours expected summit, which only ended within three hours, focused on achieving a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Before the meeting, Trump expressed hope that the summit would lead to broader talks that include Ukraine and possibly European leaders.
Speaking to reporters, the president of America clarified that his primary objective was to get Putin to the negotiating table, not to act as Ukraine’s official representative.
Meanwhile, at the end of the summit, Trump disclosed “we didn’t get there” but said progress was made after the Ukraine talks with Putin.
