iUS 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\u2019s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.<\/p>\n
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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, reports The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
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The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump\u2019s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump\u2019s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is code-word information,\u201d 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 \u201crevealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The revelation comes as the president faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James B. Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump\u2019s subsequent admission that his decision was driven by \u201cthis Russia thing\u201d was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n
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One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak – a key figure in earlier Russia controversies – into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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White House officials involved in the meeting said Trump discussed only shared concerns about terrorism.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation,\u201d said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. \u201cAt no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n
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McMaster reiterated his statement in a subsequent appearance at the White House on Monday and described the Washington Post story as \u201cfalse,\u201d but did not take any questions.<\/p>\n
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In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, rather than addressing whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources.<\/p>\n
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The CIA declined to comment, and the NSA did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
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But officials expressed concern about Trump\u2019s 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\u2019 and its allies\u2019 ability to detect future threats.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt is all kind of shocking,\u201d said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials. \u201cTrump seems to be very reckless and doesn\u2019t grasp the gravity of the things he\u2019s dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it\u2019s all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. \u201cI get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
iUS 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, reports The Washington Post. The partner had not given the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6869,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6867\/revisions\/6869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}