Some of America’s top intelligence officials are expressing frustration at the wave of media hysteria that has greeted reports that President Trump may have shared sensitive intelligence with top Russian diplomats last week, with some saying a handful of news organizations are guilty of hyping what amounts to a nonstory.
Critics of the story, which has consumed official Washington, say Mr. Trump was within his rights as commander in chief to share classified intelligence as he sees fit. They also say the criticism overlooks how President Obama and his top aides shared intelligence with Russia in the fight against the Islamic State group and faced several crises of their own with damaging intelligence leaks.
“People are making way too big a deal of this,” one senior U.S. intelligence official told The Washington Times on Wednesday after reports that Mr. Trump jeopardized a critical Islamic State intelligence source — reportedly cultivated by Israel — by revealing highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office.
“First of all, it was the Obama administration that started the policy of intelligence-sharing with the Russians about the specific problem of ISIS in Syria, and there was no secret that such sharing was going on,” said the official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “Second, the president can say whatever he wants because he’s the president — assuming he said something sensitive, that’s entirely up to his judgment.”
There you have it intelligence insiders basically agree with Trump that the mainstream media war against Trump is simply nothing more than a witch hunt. Regarding Trump's classified information that involved ISIS threats it's really a non story, because the intelligence first of all is intelligence on ISIS plots. The mainstream media and Democrats complaining about this intelligence, is simply Democrats and the mainstream media trying to protect ISIS...Let that sink in.
The thing that makes this Trump/Russia classified information a non story, is that this classified ISIS intelligence was leaked by the mainstream media in late march and early April a month before Trump held a Lavrov meeting inside the White House. Go search it for yourself, because you will find multiple mainstream media stories in early April leaking the classified anti ISIS intelligence...When the media and Democrats are complaining about Trump giving it to Lavrov when the mainstream media leaked the intelligence a month prior to the Lavrov Trump meeting.
Critics of the story, which has consumed official Washington, say Mr. Trump was within his rights as commander in chief to share classified intelligence as he sees fit. They also say the criticism overlooks how President Obama and his top aides shared intelligence with Russia in the fight against the Islamic State group and faced several crises of their own with damaging intelligence leaks.
“People are making way too big a deal of this,” one senior U.S. intelligence official told The Washington Times on Wednesday after reports that Mr. Trump jeopardized a critical Islamic State intelligence source — reportedly cultivated by Israel — by revealing highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office.
“First of all, it was the Obama administration that started the policy of intelligence-sharing with the Russians about the specific problem of ISIS in Syria, and there was no secret that such sharing was going on,” said the official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “Second, the president can say whatever he wants because he’s the president — assuming he said something sensitive, that’s entirely up to his judgment.”
There you have it intelligence insiders basically agree with Trump that the mainstream media war against Trump is simply nothing more than a witch hunt. Regarding Trump's classified information that involved ISIS threats it's really a non story, because the intelligence first of all is intelligence on ISIS plots. The mainstream media and Democrats complaining about this intelligence, is simply Democrats and the mainstream media trying to protect ISIS...Let that sink in.
The thing that makes this Trump/Russia classified information a non story, is that this classified ISIS intelligence was leaked by the mainstream media in late march and early April a month before Trump held a Lavrov meeting inside the White House. Go search it for yourself, because you will find multiple mainstream media stories in early April leaking the classified anti ISIS intelligence...When the media and Democrats are complaining about Trump giving it to Lavrov when the mainstream media leaked the intelligence a month prior to the Lavrov Trump meeting.