Trump lashes out at envoy after leak of harsh memos

LONDON — President Trump threatened Monday to cut off contact with Britain’s ambassador to the United States after leaked diplomatic cables revealed the envoy called the Trump administration “dysfunctional” and “inept.”

The U.S. leader tweeted about Ambassador Kim Darroch a day after a British newspaper published the diplomat’s unflattering assessments of the current administration in Washington.

“I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him,” Trump wrote.

The documents — published in the Mail newspaper on Sunday — have created awkwardness between two countries that are longtime allies. British officials said they were hunting for the culprit behind the leak, which was both an embarrassment to Prime Minister Theresa May’s government and a major breach of diplomatic security.

Darroch has served as Britain’s envoy to Washington since 2016, and the cables cover a period from 2017 to recent weeks.

In the leaked documents he called the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran “incoherent,” said the president might be indebted to “dodgy Russians” and raised doubts about whether the White House “will ever look competent.”

The documents were intended for senior U.K. ministers and civil servants. Government officials think the mole will be found among British politicians or officials, not foreign governments or hackers. “I’ve seen nothing to suggest hostile state actors were involved,” said May’s spokesman, James Slack.

The inquiry is being led by civil servants in the Cabinet Office, and Slack said police would only be called in “if evidence of criminality is found.”

But Conservative U.K. lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, who chairs Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said he had written to the chief of London’s Metropolitan Police asking for a criminal probe into the leak. It’s possible the leaker could be charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.