【Dear Utol (2025): Pa-Yummy si Ma'am Episode 37】

Today in yes-that-really-happened: White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly used a compromised personal cellphone for months.

The Dear Utol (2025): Pa-Yummy si Ma'am Episode 37former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security apparently realized something was up during the summer, according to a new report from Politicociting three government officials, after potentially several months of foreign snooping.

Kelly took the device to the White House's tech team, complaining that it wouldn't work properly or update software -- and hadn't been right for months. But it turned out that the inability to get himself new Snapchat filters was the least of his worries; the phone was vulnerable to hackers and hostile governments.

Aides circulated a one-page memo through Trump's administration last month,Politicoreports, and Kelly has since stopped using the phone.

It's unclear why Kelly spent so long with a messed up phone, and what data if any would have been obtained from the device. A White House spokesperson said Kelly hadn't used the phone "often" since joining the administration, which implies he still kept it around some of the time. Politicodoesn't explain why Kelly was bringing his personal phone to be fixed by the government's tech team rather than, let's say, the Genius Bar. One could assume he was using it for government business at some point.

This isn't the first time phones have been an issue for the administration. Trump eventually had to give up his Galaxy G3 in January after using the device, which hadn't had a software update in over a year, for several weeks after the inauguration.

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