From ‘Mr. President POO-tihn’ to a bald eagle gift: Secret Trump-Putin summit papers found in Alaskan hotel

The episode adds to a string of recent security mishaps involving U.S. officials.

In a bizarre security lapse, documents bearing U.S. State Department markings were discovered on Friday morning at the business center of Anchorage’s Hotel Captain Cook, just a short drive from where President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held their August 15 summit.

According to a report by NPR, the packet of eight pages contained sensitive logistical details, including meeting schedules, seating arrangements, staff contacts, and even phonetic pronunciations of Russian officials’ names. The papers were apparently left behind in the hotel’s public printer.

What the documents contained

The first page outlined the sequence of meetings, specifying the names of rooms inside Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson where events would take place. It also disclosed Trump’s planned gift to Putin: an “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.”

Pictures of two documents about the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska that were found in a public hotel printer in Anchorage. (Image obtained by NPR).

Pages two through five listed the names and direct phone numbers of three U.S. staffers, along with 13 U.S. and Russian leaders expected at the summit. The list included phonetic guides such as “Mr. President POO-tihn.”

Pages six and seven detailed a luncheon “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin,” including a seating chart and menu. Trump was to be flanked by senior Cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Across the table, Putin was to sit beside Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.

The menu? Green salad, filet mignon and halibut olympia, followed by crème brûlée. The luncheon, however, was ultimately cancelled.

Guests stumble upon the papers

At around 9 a.m. Friday, three hotel guests found the packet in a shared printer at the Captain Cook, NPR said. The guests, fearing retaliation, asked to remain unnamed but shared photographs of the documents with the outlet.

Neither the White House nor the State Department responded to NPR’s requests for comment.

Experts call it a 'serious lapse'

Jon Michaels, a law professor at UCLA who teaches national security, told NPR the incident was another sign of poor discipline in handling sensitive material.

“It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration. You just don’t leave things in printers. It’s that simple,” he said.

Part of a larger pattern

The episode adds to a string of recent security mishaps involving U.S. officials. Earlier this week, a law enforcement group chat involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mistakenly added a random outsider while discussing a manhunt for a convicted criminal. In March, national security leaders accidentally included a journalist in a group chat about impending U.S. strikes in Yemen.

The Alaskan hotel incident, however, stands out for its timing, exposing details of one of the highest-stakes diplomatic meetings of the year.