Trump leakers could prove elusive targets

The journey of information from the Oval Office to the front-pages was set in motion by an American note-taker — either from the National Security Council (NSC) or the State Department — on hand to document the proceedings with the Russian diplomats.

That raw data was drafted into a memorandum of conversation – or “memcon,” for short – which was then sent through an editing and approval process by senior officials on the NSC. The memcon is then logged and registered as the official U.S. record of the meeting and kept on file either at the NSC or State Department.

The memcon is distributed — sometimes as a hard-copy, to limit circulation – to relevant officials at Department of State, Department of Defense, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies within the intelligence community.

Along the way, officials’ assistants can often see the material as well. Those with appropriate clearances can also view the memcons at the repositories where they’re kept.