Former Dutch PM used to have an old Nokia with a very limited capacity to store messages[0], so he could always say he had to delete messages so he could keep receiving new ones.

[0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2429354-wissen-sms-jes-door-rutte-vol...

Yes, and now he's the NATO Secretary General. As PM, he employed the obvious and straighforward defense against the Dutch version of FOIA of keeping the most important communications in-person behind closed doors[1].

I'd assume many high ranking Western politicians do something similar, while paying lip service to high minded ideals about openness, transparancy and democracy.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutte-doctrine

Eschewing responsibility through these kinds of "tricks", where the person obviously thinks themselves so above everyone else that they can make them idiots to their face, makes my blood boil.

It's always either public "servants" in power, or the rich people, putting themselves outside of the rules. If you are an elected official, and make a stunt like this, it should be grounds for immediate dismissal, IMO. But, alas, nowadays these kinds of things are so minor and irrelevant, in the sea of ridiculously horrible stuff they do.

It's at least refreshing that there are still places, like the Netherlands in this case, where there are some (even when it's surface-level) repercussions of such behavior.

messages could be (and usually are) stored server side. Plus SMS is not secure at all and easy to eavesdrop on.