"Lock him up, lock him up!"
What a dangerous dimbulb:
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 that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
The information Trump 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 that Trump’s decision to do so risks 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 National Security Agency.
In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.
Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat. (our emphasis)Whether he did it consciously or, more likely, out of bottomless ignorance and a desire to show off how "smart" and well informed he is, the fact is this dangerous dimbulb needs to have a full time handler/ babysitter. Better yet, we need to get him out of there.
Imagine, if you would, what the outcry would be from, say, Sneaker of the House Paul "Lyin'" Ryan or Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell if a President Hillary Clinton did this? (Here's a clue. Here's another one, from the horse's ass himself's mouth.) Of course, she has more brains in her left pinky toe than Dolt 45, so...
UPDATE: An interesting theory from Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice as to how the Washington Post got the story:
What I think happened with this leak to The Washington Post, and what I think people need to understand about it, is that this was leaked to the press, with heavy caveats and conditions to not make the disclosure worse, in order to prevent the President, or anyone else in the room with him, from being blackmailed by the Russians over this. The Russians have their own notes. Because they were allowed to bring a team from TASS with them as part of their delegation, and the TASS staffers brought their equipment, there is no way to be sure that the Russians don’t have recordings. My guess is that once it because clear to the IC folks in the know on this information that TASS had been there with their equipment and taken pictures, because the Russians released the pictures, a decision was made to try to mitigate the damage by leaking to the press ahead of the Russians. The leak is itself intended to inoculate and immunize the President and everyone else from the US side that was in the room so the Russians cannot hold this over their heads. Full stop. (our emphasis)(Photo: Rump spilling state secrets to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak on May 10, no doubt while the TASS photographer was planting a listening device.)
