Trump defends leak of intel to Russians
‘LEGITIMATE INFO’ US President contradicts earlier White House statements
President Donald Trump has been found to have disclosed highly classified information to the Russia foreign minister and ambassador at the White House. Except, he didn’t call it a leak.
“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,” Trump said in two tweets.
According to him, it was legitimate information sharing which he is legally empowered to do. But as has become the pattern, Trump contradicted surrogates fielded by the White House the previous day — national security adviser HR McMaster called the report on the leak “false”.
The Washington Post, which first reported the alleged breach, said it was not disclosing details at the request of officials who feared public disclosure could jeopardize the operation run by an ally who had not authorized its sharing.
And that has worried allies and other partners who share intelligence with the US. A European official told AP their country might cease sharing intelligence because of the disclosure.
At his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Trump had said, according to the Post, “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day.” And then he discussed it in some details.
Though he did not get into specifics, the president went on to describe “how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances”.
The optics were troubling enough of the US president meeting Russians the day after he had fired FBI director James Comey who was overseeing an investigation into Moscow meddling with US elections with alleged collusion of Trump campaign aides.
Kislyak’s interactions — meetings and phone conversations — with Trump’s first NSA Michael Flynn and attorney general Jeff Sessions and already cost them their job and role in the Russia investigation respectively.
And now this bombshell.