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
Courtesy of CNN:...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's tweets Tuesday notably lack any mention of whether the information he shared was classified.
And the remarks appear to contradict statements made by his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster -- who told reporters in the wake of the report that "the story as reported is false" -- and White House deputy national security adviser for strategy, Dina Powell, who said Monday "the story is false. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."
Well in his tweet Trump is essentially admitting that he discussed terrorism with the Russians which is not what the White House talking points were after the story broke.
The WaPo story revealed that Trump had shared classified "code word" information which came from a US partner, and that, though he did not share the source, the Russians would likely be able to reverse engineer to reveal the source of the information on their own.
And while Trump is technically correct that he has "the absolute right" to reveal information, whether classified or not, doing so to the Russians reinforces the idea that the Russians are controlling Trump, and that he does not respect the importance of carefully handling confidential information or the allies who provided that information.
Here is more from CNN:
The potential consequences could hardly be more serious, former CIA case officer Bob Baer told CNN's Erin Burnett Monday night.
"The President, by revealing this to the Russians, has lost control of this information. It's going to go to the Syrians, It's going to go to the Iranians -- Russian allies," Baer said.
"The ability to protect that source whoever he is, wherever he is has been seriously undermined ... If a CIA officer had revealed this information to the Russians, he would be fired instantly."
Essentially this is the crux of the problem. Simply put Trump has NO idea how to handle the responsibilities of his job.
And the message for our allies (Russia is NOT an ally.) moving forward is that this president is an amateur who cannot be trusted with the kinds of sensitive information that may need to be shared to keep the world safe from terrorism.
Source http://ift.tt/2qs1aaf
