Sources: Trump gave Russians classified details
Oval Office divulgence put ally’s trust at risk, they say
WASHINGTON — President Donald 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 White House rebutted the story, saying no intelligence sources or methods were discussed.
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.
The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Se-
curity Agency.
“This is code- word information,” said a U. S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”
The U. S. official and several others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.
White House officials involved in the meeting said Trump discussed only shared concerns about terrorism.
“The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation,” said H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. “At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.”
McMaster reiterated his statement in a subsequent appearance at the White House late Monday and described the story about what was conveyed at the meeting, first reported by The Washington Post, as “false” but did not take any questions.
He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way.
“Their on- the- record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources” in the news report, he said.
In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, but did not address whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources.
“This story is false,” Powell said. “The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.”
The CIA declined to comment, and the NSA did not respond to requests for comment.
RUSSIA FOCUSES
The revelation comes as the president faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia- related fronts.
Last week, he fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump’s subsequent admission that his decision was driven by “this Russia thing” was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.
A day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — a key figure in earlier Russia controversies — into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, said the officials who spoke to the Post, that Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.
For almost anyone in government, discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.
But 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.
In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming 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.
Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner, officials said. He did not reveal the specific intelligence- gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances, officials said.
Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U. S. intelligence partner detected the threat.
The Post said in its article that it is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.
“Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling,” said a former senior U. S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team.
TROUBLING DETAIL
The identification of the location was seen as particularly pertubing, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U. S. ally or intelligence capability involved.
Officials said the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence benefiting Russia’s presence in Syria.
Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support President Bashar Assad.
At a more fundamental level, the information wasn’t the United States’ to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments — and even individual agencies — are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated, even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.
The officials declined to identify the ally but said it has previously voiced frustration with Washington’s inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.
“If that partner learned we’d given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first, that is a blow to that relationship,” the U. S. official said.
Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped, and they moved to contain the potential fallout.
Thomas Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, the services most directly involved in the intelligence- sharing arrangement with the partner, the Post reported.
One of Bossert’s subordinates also called for the worrisome
part of Trump’s discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked, according to the Post.
Lavrov’s reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.
Kislyak has figured prominently in stories about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and his misleading statements about them. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI’s Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak, despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.
“I’m sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details” he gleaned from Trump, said a former intelligence official who handled high- level intelligence on Russia.
The White House summary of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.
“Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria,” the summary said. The president also “raised Ukraine” and “emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia.”
LAWMAKERS’ REACTIONS
Reaction from Capitol Hill Democrats was full- throated.
The story prompted Sen. Mark Warner, D- Va., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, to tweet: “If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D- N. M., tweeted: “Protip: Don’t give the Russians classified information. # Classified101.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a former Intelligence Committee chairman, told reporters that she has a lot of questions to ask. But she also appeared to give Trump the benefit of the doubt — at least for now.
“It does take a period of time to understand it, and it’s awful easy to slip,” the California Democrat said when asked whether she believes Trump has a solid grasp of what information is deemed classified.
Republicans were slightly more tempered in their remarks.
“We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation’s secrets is paramount,” said Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R- Wis. “The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.”
Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., said, “We certainly don’t want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that.”
Sen. Bob Corker, R- Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that the Trump White House “has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order.”