Donald Trump denies White House bunker visit was protest security scare
Donald Trump denies he was whisked underground at the White House but he does have bunkers and escape tunnels.
The image of a US president hiding in a heavily fortified bunker is hardly the emblem of strength Donald Trump is desperate to project, but thanks to extensive renovations at the White House that is where he is likely to be in times of perceived danger.
During the week Mr Trump sought to correct reports that he, along with the first lady and their son, Barron, were whisked into an underground shelter on Friday the week before when protesters jumped a temporary fence around the Treasury gardens that adjoin the White House grounds.
His explanation, that he was inspecting the relatively new facilities, did not ring true to observers who say that senior members of an incoming administration are given a tour of the bunkers and escape tunnels under the complex well in advance of threatening situations developing.
"It was a false report," Mr Trump told Fox News radio, before elaborating that he did go into the secure area but only for a "tiny, little, short period time". According to The New York Times, quoting an unidentified source described as having direct knowledge, Secret Service bodyguards took Mr Trump into the bunker on Friday night.
An original bunker is located under the East Wing, where the first lady’s staff are based, and is known as the presidential emergency operations centre.
Dick Cheney, vice-president to George W Bush, and other senior officials took shelter there during the 9/11 attacks when it was feared the White House was a target. It was this crisis that made the Secret Service realise the inadequacies of the existing defences, however.
“The national security people recognised that was really a joke because you couldn’t stay there very long,” said Ronald Kessler, author of Inside the White House: The Hidden Lives of the Modern Presidents and the Secrets of the World’s Most Powerful Institution.
“The other failure was that the alternative plan was to go to secret locations in West Virginia and Pennsylvania but that was ridiculous too because first of all the traffic was crazy - you couldn’t get out of Washington by vehicle and even by helicopter it would be too risky - so the Defence Department started building this new secret bunker under the North Lawn.”
The construction, which began in 2010 under President Barack Obama, was described as “relocating utilities” but went on in such secrecy and for so long it became clear that something far more elaborate was being built.
“It is a place to relocate and house the entire West Wing staff and first family in the event of some horrible attack - it could be nuclear, biological, radiological,” Kessler said.
“It’s five storeys deep into the ground and it has food and water supplies that will last months, its own self-contained air supply and a command centre. So that’s where Trump went when he relocated.”
The White House has several escape tunnels, according to Kessler; one from the basement of the East Wing to the Treasury basement next door, and a second leading from there under Pennsylvania Avenue to a building across the street.
He added: “Then there is a newer tunnel from under the Oval Office to the South Lawn so the president could escape to get on a helicopter.”
The security protocols and defences of the White House are highly classified and Mr Kessler has gleaned what he knows from years of nurturing Secret Service contacts.
The Times
Tories point finger at ‘faker’ Farage over members claim
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Nigel Farage of faking a surge in Reform membership after the party claimed to have surpassed the Conservatives for the first time.
How neighbourhoods get top vote as homebuyers hunt for ‘their people’
A real estate company is offering prospective homeowners a feature that, for many, really matters: a breakdown of how their future neighbours voted.