Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
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 to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.President Donald Trump defended himself over reports that he divulged classified information to Russia, tweeting that he had the “absolute right” to share facts about terrorism with the Kremlin.
Trump was responding to criticism that he divulged sensitive intelligence from a close U.S. ally that could compromise a source. The president cited “humanitarian reasons” and a desire for increased Russian action against ISIS for fact-sharing with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week.
U.S. officials had said giving the Russians such details potentially jeopardized intelligence-sharing agreements in the fight against ISIS.
Trump’s tweets were a departure from a hastily assembled White House response last night about what had happened in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.
National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster said a report from the Washington Post that said Trump had shared classified information-sharing was “false.” He specifically denied that Trump had shared information about intelligence sources or methods
But he stopped short of denying that the president had shared any intelligence or other secrets with the Russians.
The Wall Street Journal reported late yesterday that Trump divulged details about Islamic State in a way that revealed enough information for the Russians to potentially compromise the source of the intelligence, according to officials, who said the intelligence came from the U.S. ally.
The White House didn’t provide a detailed statement about Trump’s meeting last week with Lavrov, the foreign minister, and Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, which was closed to the press. A photographer from the Russian news agency, TASS, was in the room and published photographs.
Trump noted on Twitter today that the meeting was “openly scheduled.” The meeting with Lavrov was on the president’s public schedule, which did not state that Kislyak would attend as well.
Later this morning, Trump wrote on Twitter that he had asked former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired last week the day before the meeting with the Russians, and others “to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....”
A subsequent tweet didn’t immediately appear.
Presidents have the legal right to declassify intelligence as they see fit. But doing so can put intelligence sources abroad in danger and make them less willing to work with the U.S., several defense officials said, and the latest disclosures stunned Washington’s national-security veterans on both sides of the political divide.
Source: WSJ
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