UPDATE (5:08 pm): National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster just made a brief statement at the White House that was a vague denial of the story. McMaster did not respond to questions.
—–
Breaking news this afternoon from the Washington Post:
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 Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
The information the president 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.
The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.
It’s not as bad as you think…it’s much worse:
The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.
“Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling,” said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.
The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia’s presence in Syria. Moscow would be keenly interested in identifying that source and possibly disrupting it.
Holy shit.
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Speechless
LEGAL
. . . but bigley dumber than a fucking post!
So is abortion, Moddy.
Do we ever hang convicted traitors in this country anymore? ‘cuz boy do we have some great gallows candidates within this immoral, criminal trump cabal. I’m against the death penalty, but willing to make an exception in the case of this deplorable, evil mob.
We haven't executed a traitor since the Rosenbergs. Instead, Obama commuted the sentence of traitor Bradley Manning, who now styles himself as Chelsa and who will be getting out of prison any day now.
Exactly the problem the intelligence community was afraid of: a braggart buffoon with no filter easily manipulated by our enemies.
The Russians loosened Trump up with lavish flattery and he rewarded them with everything that they asked for (and some likely unprompted simply to "show off").
They were well-prepared to play him like a fine-tuned instrument, and Trump was eager to please.
Yup.
"Lavish flattery", really?
Sounds like too way much work when all they probably needed to give him was some sparkly sprinkles on his dessert …
Those two scoops of ice cream?
People, people, people — relax, huh? …
We're talking Donnie TwoScoops here, remember? …
What are the chances that anything that issues from His Drumpfiness's ice-cream-hole bears, in any way, any resemblance to reality / truth, or could possibly even be considered "accurate"?
Great minds, Dio…
"Donnie TwoScoops" FTW
Is "two scoops" anything like "Two slices" from "The Help?"
, V. You
Now, now people. One of the Incredible 3 (PP or Passionate Prune, Moderatus, Andrew) will soon weigh in to put us all at ease by telling us this is all fake news promoted by George Soros.
No laws broken. Trump was legal and right too. Enough!!!
Nor were laws broken here 80% of the time.
Moderatus: sounds like you're engaging in a good game of CYA. I doubt you know anything about what is legal and right here.
I'll bet Donnie's good friend Bibi Netanyahu is less than pleased with him now since the ally whose information was disclosed was Israel.
So comerade Moldy, tell me why Trump telling Russia about Israel's intelligence operation was the correct decision. I'll expect it along with my ACA article.
You may be able to claim it was legal – most would disagree – but claim he was "right" ? What are doing, Moddy? Huffing paint?
Jaysus Henry Freaking Christ. He's daring the intelligence community to come after him.
"Being President means never having to say you're sorry."
As a country our most grave national security risk is from this president.
I don't know if he's just incredibly stupid or if he was trying to impress his Russian masters on what a good job he's doing dismantling our Democracy.
I'm also not going to hold my breath waiting for a republican member of either the house or senate to condemn our moron in chief.
Enough. Let's apply the Hillary test: We know that Republicants would impeach Hillary for far less (they already threatened as much if she had won the election). So, which CO GOP congressmen will call for impeaching Trump?
Have we been made great yet?
None of them has the backbone to call for impeachment. They'll all wait to see what direction the wind blows. Coffman is probably the closest to (talking like) a moderate , these days, but his heart is still a damp little teabag.
Hell, I don’t know if we could get Perlmutter or Bennet to call for impeachment. (But we’d better start trying).
There are days when I really miss Pat Schroeder.
Alternate Reality Check
Fox News tonight has been reporting on:
–Michelle Obama's healthy foods initiative
–Chaos in Venezuela
— The cyberattack
–And the leaks related to the Trump Treason; not the Treason itself.
Hoo-boy.
If you are stupid enough to watch Fox News, you deserve what you get.
So zooming in a bit more on what exactly Donald J Trump's treason consisted of: In Syria, US and Russian interests are in serious, armed conflict. Our allies are not their allies. Trump gave the Russians information which would allow them to find a source in Syria. This would give them information, from one of our allies, shared without the ally’s permission, which could be used against our allies in the region.
Russia backs Assad; we back the rebels against Assad. Iran backs Assad (so is aligned with Russia). We back Qatar, and the Arab states. Britain and France are allied with us. Turkey is allied with us, most of the time.
In theory, everyone is aligned against ISIL. However, there is not a real coalition against ISIL, but a bunch of well-armed countries and groups who occasionally bomb the same people. Syrian citizens and non-combatants are getting the hell out as fast as they can from this volatile, toxic mess. Per WaPo, quoted above: "Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. " From Maddow's interview with guest Ned Price, former CIA and security analyst, the information shared would allow Russia to discern the origin of a confidential source.
Map from Al Jazeera 5/2017
This is what our president has given up confidential information to Russia about. The "code word level" information which DJT shared, apparently just on a whim, with Russia because Putin asked for a meeting on May 10, would allow Russia to track down a confidential source within Syria, where our interests and Russia's are in conflict.
When Donald Trump, real estate magnate and TV star, shared a secret with a business rival, a business deal might have gotten blown up. When Donald Trump, President, shares top secret information with a rival in a conflict region, people die.
Call your representatives in Congress, all of them of whatever party. We have to get this volatile , infantile treasonous madman removed from Presidential power ASAP.
Senator Bennet: Contact Us
Senator Gardner: Contact Cory*
Rep. Degette: Contact Me
Rep. Polis: Contact Jared Polis
Rep. Tipton: Contact Congressman Tipton
Rep. Buck: Email Congressman Buck
Rep. Lamborn: Contact Congressman Doug Lamborn
Rep. Coffman:Contact Mike Coffman
Rep. Perlmutter: Perlmutter Write Your Rep
You have Moderatus' word that no laws were broken. Isn't that good enough?
Pols…^^^^^^^^awaiting moderation^^^^^^^.
The Trump Minions (sorry, that should be morans) seem to be MIA on this story?
To help them out:
The president has the right to declassify top-secret intelligence, no matter how damaging it would be to US interests. In fact, he has the right to declassify the nuclear codes.
Besides, we won the electoral college so you libtards should just sit on it and twirl.
The main problem is Trump's tweets are distracting us from the important work of giving tax breaks to the super wealthy, cutting $1 billion from healthcare, and pushing 36 million people off health insurance.
There you go again, Pols. Censoring the rotten fruit's post. SAD!!