Probably a red herring. It is at the discretion of POTUS to alter or amend security restrictions as he sees fit. I have first-hand knowledge of Bush 43 ordering IT staff in Iraq to provide foreign allies (primarily UK. Cannuks and Aussies) access to SIPRNet (classified Secret/NoForn) for the sole purpose of receiving (and receiving only) Secret-level emails they otherwise would hot have had access to. The IT staff “stood up” an email server (built from a Dell laptop!) which was hosted on a subnet created exclusively to transmit these emails to those foreign allies, which they received on laptops that only could be used for that one function. SIPRNet access to those certain allies now has been formally amended but at the time they weren’t willing to wait for the change to go “through channels.” All it took was a directive signed by Dubya, and it was “Yessir, yessir, three bags full.”
So if Der Schlickmeister was in on it (and what shady thing was ne not “in on”?), it was kosher.
I was involved in the middle of this issue at the level of the Ministries of Defence if the UK, Australia, and Canada with the U.S. Department of Defense. While what you describe may have been true from your foxhole, the issue was much larger.
All of those particular countries were cleared for SECRET level access for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact for worldwide access until specifically excluded. The NoForn restrictions were specifically lifted for combat operations as has always been done since the WWII. The issue was technical. SIPR could not be integrated into the Command and Control Networks in theater because of the protections that had been built into the software. That's why the swivel chair solution was put in place. Everything that they saw, they were cleared to see. We have been doing this with these countries since WWII, but we weren't capable of integrate our digital command and control systems.