On Saturday night, one of the guests at President Donald Trump's luxurious Mar-a-Lago Club, in West Palm Beach, joined her friends for a birthday dinner. But she didn't realize her group would be getting a front-row seat to a national security meeting between the president and the prime minister of Japan after North Korea launched a ballistic missile.
A White House official confirmed to ABC News around 8:40 p.m. ET that Trump had been briefed on the North Korea incident.
The guest, phone camera in hand, took pictures as Trump and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe -- who had gathered for dinner -- worked on the dimly lit outdoor patio.
The guest, who asked not to be named, told ABC News that she was sitting near Trump and Abe, and walked up to their roped off table to take photos at 10:17 p.m. Roughly 20 minutes later, Trump and Abe gave a brief joint statement from a gilded room inside Mar-a-Lago.
"I went up to the rope and he was more than happy to smile for a photo!" the guest wrote in a message to ABC News. "He just smiled when he saw I was taking a photo! He was also waving."
"There was a point after they finished eating when they were all standing behind Trump with papers in their hands," said the attendee.
It was not immediately clear what was discussed in the public setting or if classified information was broached, but Trump and Abe's meeting, held in the view of club guests and their cameras, raised the eyebrows of national security and government ethics experts.
President Obama’s ethics czar, Norm Eisen tweeted his disapproval. “Couldnt they go into side room 2do this? Nah--would have reduced free TV 4Mar-A-Lago dining room. Trump's greed an infomercial for spies!”
“I wonder if Director Comey would consider this careless,” tweeted Brian Fallon, former press secretary to Hillary Clinton, in a swipe at FBI Director James Comey, who criticized Clinton’s handling of classified information as careless, not criminal.
Former White House photographer Pete Souza, who has been critical of Trump, posted to Instagram on Monday a photo from 2011 of former President Obama holding a discussion in El Salvador following a call with his national security team.
“When we were on the road, national security discussions and head of state phone calls were conducted in a private, secure location set up onsite,” the caption read.
And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted:
ABC News' Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2lDqcUu
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