Washington: The Pentagon Watchdog said on Tuesday it would evaluate the safety protocol that surrounded “nuclear soccer” – which contained the code needed for the strike – after one such bag almost came within reach of rioters invaded the capitol at short notice in January.
, Office Inspector General said it would evaluate the extent of the Pentagon officials can detect and respond if the President’s Emergency Satchel “lost, stolen, or compromised.” “We can revise the destination as a result of evaluation,” he said.
A US official, spoke with the terms of anonymously, said concerns around the January 6 siege helped trigger evaluation.
On that date, Vice President Mike Pence was in Capitol US, accompanied by a military aide carrying a reserve nuclear football when the building was invaded by supporters of President Donald Trump.
Satchel holds the code to be used by the President to authenticate orders to launch nuclear missiles if he is not in the White House.
The security recording published during the next Trump Impeachment trial shows pence and military aide – which has Satchel – transfer safety because the protesters are getting closer to their location.
“There’s no point in compromised,” said a source familiar with the situation.
Even if rioters take over the bag, every command of a nuclear strike still needs to be confirmed and processed by the military.
But January 6 is just one of several times during the presidency of Trump that nuclear football security is questionable.
In November 2017, when Trump was in Beijing lunch with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a Chinese security official entered another room with US military aides carrying a bag.
The White Chief of White House John Kelly, a high retired general, anticipating retirees, intervened and entered into physical altercation with Chinese officials to ensure nuclear football did not stay away from a military aide, said the former Senior Trump Administration official.
When a senior US official spoke to Chinese officials about the incident at the scene, China wanted to extend the apology to Kelly for the episode.
But Kelly refused to accept an apology, the official said.
“Tell them that they can apologize to me in Washington,” Kelly said, according to the official.
On January 20 this year, Trump insisted on leaving Washington before the Democratic inauguration Joe Biden, which meant Live football had to go with him to be in hand until Biden was sworn.
Trump was accompanied by a military cloud carrying nuclear soccer to Palm Beach, Florida, and kept it nearby until Trump was no longer president, a source familiar with the situation.