One day after dismissing FBI director James Comey expressly for continuing the investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, Donald Trump had visitors at the White House. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak came expressly by request from Vladmir Putin—and they didn’t leave empty handed.
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 that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
The information Trump 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.
Trump’s blabbing to Russia jeopardizes the nation’s relationship with an ally, endangers forces on the ground, and weakens the United States’ strategic situation with ISIS.
“This is code-word information,” 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 “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”
What Trump did during a single meeting dwarfs any potential danger caused by all the low-level information that passed through Hillary Clinton’s email server—times 10.
Donald Trump delivered the highest level intel to Russian officials face-to-face, breaking every possible rule of handling classified information.
What about it, Paul Ryan?
