Trump should heed: Loose lips sink ships
The president’s leak could allow Moscow to identify and disrupt a source of intelligence, sources warn.
For a man who wanted to lock up Hillary Clinton for her reckless handling of State Department materials, President Donald Trump seems remarkably unaware of the dangers of leaking highly classified information to known adversaries.
Given that the president frequently blames his bad luck on staffers talking to reporters without permission, who can blame anyone for marveling at Trump’s leaking — to the Russians — information so classified that just mentioning it risks outing a key ally in our fight against the Islamic State?
It’s as if the president of the United States of America doesn’t remember classic national security wisdom: “Loose lips sink ships.”
We’re talking of course about The Washington Post’s report that our president, in boasting of how his new job comes with the perk of daily receiving “great intel,” revealed information last week about a terrorist plot to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
The information is so delicate it is not known to many of our allies.
This is an outrageous goofup. And, as with his firing of FBI Director James Comey, the president compounded the damage to his credibility and to that of the White House by contradicting his own people.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, his deputy Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pushed back at The Washington Post’s story Monday night, only to see Trump acknowledge — on Twitter, of course — the story’s accuracy.
The Republican congressional delegation should demand better of Trump.
While Trump’s leaking is technically legal, as the president has the right to declassify information, his doing so hardly seems to comport with the spirit of the law.
Declassifying information ought to be done in the context of strengthening national security.
But Trump tipped off our adversaries when doing so imperils an important ally’s operatives.
That shouldn’t sit well with members of a party that professes unbending allegiance to our defense.
Worse, while the Russians are cooperating with us in fighting the Islamic State in Syria, they are also supporting Syrian strongman President Bashar Assad.
Trump’s leak, intelligence sources warn, could allow the Russians to identify and disrupt our source and also techniques used in gathering such sensitive information.
Yes, we think a lot of McMaster, and are troubled by his continued attempts Tuesday to defend the president for acting, albeit foolishly, within his rights.
We would actually love it if McMaster’s defense allowed us to see this story from Trump’s point of view.
But how does one square the idea that Trump’s actions were appropriate with the fact that his statements to the Russians were seen by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency as so toxic that any reference to them was stripped from the record of the meeting?
What a terrible question the nation must consider of its president:
Is the blustery billionaire leaking to the Russians because they helped him win the election, or because he doesn’t know what he’s doing?
Either way, Republicans in Congress need to take charge and rein in this dangerous leaker.
Trump’s leak, intelligence sources warn, could allow the Russians to identify and disrupt our source and also techniques used in gathering such sensitive information.