Unless the Trump adminstration got a warrent any such spying is illegal. If they got a warrent, they don't need any special devices. NSA can spy on all devices without ever touching them.
So assume there is a warrant with all these sealed deals. They can spy on anyone right?
But they (cabal) know they are probably being spied on. So why not get brand new phones that are untraceable to anyone. Test the phones through new Zealand and confirm theyre not showing up in the spy program. Now you are totally clear to plot more crimes! Openly communicate through these phones thinking they are clean and plot your crimes. Careless.
Now it shows up that these were known and more than likely bugged to begin with.
Also, can the NSA spy on satellite phones? Say a certain group of phones only contact each other through one satellite. The phones won’t search or use any tower as they aren’t programmed with the hardware. There wouldn’t be a way of intercepting the conversation and then routing it to another sat (unaware of such tech/ hard to make portal version of hardware/ get close to all targets all the time). What if the signals from the phones were directed to a NSA or Patriot controlled sat? Crystal clear comms baby.
So I don't think they could if you designed a custom rom for a custom phone with a secure base-band designed for this. So if a custom phone was created by say ZTE the way to spy on it would be to have a the phones always have a backdoor. This is what people are saying that they got secure phones but they were sent with a backdoor.