SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.
The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.
The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.
[...] One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure "compartment" to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.
After Trump's disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKCN18B2MX
Also at The Washington Post and The New York Times.
[Update.] According to Ars Technica, President Trump then proceeded to Tweet information about this meeting:
Statements from President Trump on Twitter and from White House National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster did not directly contradict details initially reported by the Washington Post late on Monday. McMaster said that no sources or methods were exposed in the conversation. However, the unnamed officials cited in the Post report were concerned that Trump's citing of the exact location "in the Islamic State’s territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat" could expose the source. Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted:
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
Trump also lashed out at the intelligence community for leaking about his actions:
I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
(Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:23PM (5 children)
Regardless of what information actually got exchanged, I see a silver lining in the fact that it's sowing controversy and distrust within the intelligence community and between the intelligence community and the white house. The more time they need to spend on real spycraft and statecraft, hopefully the less time they'll spend on quiet, business-as-usual spying on citizens. Just putting a wedge in the five eyes cartel and its bullshit workarounds for constitutional protection is a beneficial outcome as far as I can see.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:44PM (3 children)
Regardless of what information actually got exchanged, I see a silver lining in the fact that it's sowing controversy and distrust within the intelligence community and between the intelligence community and the white house. The more time they need to spend on real spycraft and statecraft, hopefully the less time they'll spend on quiet, business-as-usual spying on citizens. Just putting a wedge in the five eyes cartel and its bullshit workarounds for constitutional protection is a beneficial outcome as far as I can see.
Absolutely! This is great news. Hopefully ISIS will figure out who it was that gave the info to the Americans. It would be even better if it's not just one person, but a whole chain of informants that ISIS can torture and kill.
If we're lucky, those who are tortured will give up even more US agents so they can be killed too.
With a little luck, the CIA will have to spend the next 10 or 15 years trying to get back inside ISIS. That'll show those stupid fuckers, now won't it?
Who cares if a bunch of towel head camel jockeys are tortured and beheaded, and hundreds or perhaps thousands of innocent civilians die because no one who wants to live is stupid enough to work for the CIA and inform on ISIS any more.
But those fucking assholes got poked in the eye, so it's all worth it. Amirite!?!
It will also put a real monkey wrench in the *electronic* surveillance being done by the NSA, right?
'Murikkka, Fuck yeah!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:58PM
Actually, there is to little "spying", and to much fuckery going on. The CIA is a mere shadow of what it used to be. Back before I was born, the CIA could snap it's fingers, and topple governments. Today? They can't do shit about a ragtag army of ragheads. Sad, isn't it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:41PM
Agreed, time and a place. Yes there are tons of constitutional violations, but harming legitimate operations is not the way to go about correcting the abuses.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:54PM
Well it said the proximal source was a "US intelligence partner", which I took to mean a nation-state, not a single person inside ISIS, although that may have been the ultimate source. My thought was that maybe other countries *should* be more careful about sharing intelligence with the US. We're clumsy, easy to manipulate with bad intel, over-reliant on tech and military might, very sensitive to American lives being lost, but not at all sensitive to non-American lives being lost. Man, if the inhabitants of the Middle East haven't learned by this point that we don't always have their best interests at heart...
It sucks, but pawns in the intel game are constantly getting killed abroad because of US fuckwittery, and this incident would be no different, just more visible because it comes from a higher level.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DECbot on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:26PM
Real spying and statecraft is hard. We'll probably drop those and solely dedicate our mission to domestic spying. America First!
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base