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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: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:46PM (2 children)
A destabilized Syria is a Syria not interested in re-enacting the events of '67 or '73. Or however unlikely it was before destabilization, the less likely after, in addition to more time.
Of course a destabilized enough state leads to terror attacks in Europe and USA so what benefits Israel does not benefit the west in that sense.
Also historically "everyone" in the freaking middle east has played the cold war game of playing the Americans off against the Russians for decades, so shaking hands and working together on ISIS is super-destabilizing.
Its interesting to think Saudi Arabia is pretty close to falling due to the end of oil production, and after that happens other than politics there is no longer a strategic US interest in the middle east. It'll be Iran as a regional power and its Shia buddies in Syria vs the rest of the middle east plus or minus Russia. Then if it does turn out to be Russia vs Iran, our strategic ally for whatever interference we're still involved in, will be Iran and that'll be strange bedfellows. Won't that be interesting to watch unfold.
This is why the neocons are pounding for attacking Syria and preferably Iran, because either we beat them today and Israel rules them and tell us what to do as we oppose Russia, or we ally with Iran and Syria against Russia and Israel can pound sand until they send us some oil. Essentially we have to have a war with Syria and Iran like yesterday if possible or else the middlemen are about to get squeezed out of the picture, and since they totally control the media and banking industries this will be messy.
Then there's the bigger picture puzzle of we have a worldwide naval dominance trading empire (Today we're kinda like England in about 1914) and we had to oppose the land-locked empire on the other side of the planet because "they formenting communist rebellion" but US vs Russia is really an Athens vs Sparta thing. But they gave up on communism decades ago and the only commies left are now in charge of USA media and academia in general. So we're pretty close to washing our hands of the whole thing and "have fun with your land empire on the other side of the planet". Once the oil's gone, once China does its impression of their own great depression, the middle east and the other side of the planet is only as important as something like the Crimea so "eh".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @09:03PM (1 child)
OK, so bad for Israel in the sense that they could lose control of their all-important client state, the US? Maybe. But didn't they already blow all their chits on the Saddam takedown? I don't think they can drag America into Iran at this point, as much as it seems they have been successful in preventing the take-down the much more deserving Kim Jong-Un. That guy is testing nuclear weapons and ICBMs both.
Academia is the last redoubt of the red diaper babies, but it's strange to hear the media called commies. They're all owned by giant media conglomerates, and surely they have no interest in collectivization.
I wonder that, too. Will empires still be needed when we all produce our energy locally and decide we all have enough plastic crap from China to last us several lifetimes?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:56AM
The media houses are owned by conglomerates, and the conglomerates only look at their Excel sheet. Academia drives the indoctrination and many of the young, gullible and not-very-intelligent kind of people end up doing journalism.
Power is not a necessity for most people, it is a goal in itself. Never underestimate the lengths of politics a person is willing to do, to gather more power.