According to a recent article from the Washington Post, President Trump confirmed that he had shared highly sensitive information with the Russian government. In fact, Trump even posted on his Twitter account something to the likes of "I wanted to share with Russia."
President Trump defended his actions by saying that he has every right to share sensitive information with Russia. He further expounds the issue that he shared sensitive information about airline flight safety and terrorism. On another Twitter post, Trump said that his primary reason for sharing sensitive information was for humanitarian purposes. On top of that, Trump also wanted Russia to greatly increase its efforts in the fight against terrorism and ISIS.
While President Trump's actions may not be a big deal on the surface, the entire fiasco draws ire from political analysts and experienced diplomatic professionals. In fact, Trump may be casually endangering many lives.
According to an anonymous US official, what Trump has shared with Sergey Kislyak, Ambassador of Russia to the U.S., and Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, may be a great risk to the informants. The issue is multiplied many times over as the informants never gave the "OK" signal for the disclosure of the sensitive information to Russia. With the proper tactical information feeding, an organization can easily tell who is giving away the information.
The anonymous U.S. official also added that President Trump shared assailable information to Russia, and that kind of information is not shared even with the allies of the U.S.
A lot of critics are saying that this recent move of President Trump is simply to move focus away from the recent firing of Comey, the former FBI Director. President Trump also tweeted that he asked Director Comey and others to search for the leakers in his administration and in the intelligence community.
However, things are really getting muddy in the White House. According to Mark Knoller, the White House Correspondent of CBS News, the current White House spokesman mentioned that Trump's tweets do not confirm that the White House has truly disclosed classified information to the Russian government.
In fact, the White House turned the tide and pushed back on the report. According to Dina Powell, the deputy National Security Adviser, the story is simply false.
H.R. McMaster, the acting National Security Adviser, also scrutinized the report. Keep in mind that H.R. McMaster was also part of the Russian-U.S. meeting.
He came out with a televised statement saying that Trump is really serious about the security of the American people. H.R. McMaster then added that the story about Trump leaking sensitive information is simply untrue.
According to H.R. McMaster, he was in the room, and no such thing ever happened.
The Russian government also denied it. According to them, Trump did not reveal any classified information.
