Monday, May 15, 2017

Trump gave highly classified information to Russia

According to The Washington Post, Donald Trump gave highly classified information of US operations against ISIS to Russian officials during their visit to the White House. From the WP article:

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

This is the same meeting Trump had the day after firing James Comey, buy the way.

And there's more:

...officials expressed concern about Trump’s handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States’ and its allies’ ability to detect future threats.

Two things about this:

1. For most federal employees, what Trump did would've been a crime. Trump got away with it because as President he can declassify a broad range of information.

2. What Trump did was clearly reckless. And apparently he did it just to brag:

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming [ISIS] threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Well, according to the Washington Post, Trump's people had to call the CIA and the NSA after the meeting to tell them what Trump did.

Now, remember how the Republicans bitched and moaned about Hillary Clinton endangering classified information because of her private email server? What are they going to say about Trump telling highly classified information to the Russian government directly?

Something tells me that if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would've done the same thing, the Republicans would've called treason.


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