Trump revealed highly classified information to Russ. foreign minister and ambassador

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he 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.

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 perhaps disrupting it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat...4f0ed88b80

This is a big deal.

Jesus Christ, this is shit they teach every airman recruit. Do not reveal information, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

Of course, the Shitgibbon had to have/should have known how sensitive it was.

I learnt on the way home from work tonight that the President can reveal classified information at his own discretion. How fucked up is that?

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Let's say the next time there is an intelligence windfall like this, we don't get this information, and it results in a terrorist attack, because we didn't have the information necessary to take preventative steps, like banning laptops on flights.

This. What will happen when the next insight comes about? The source will remember that the last guy got his head sawed off because the goddamned POTUS ran his mouth.

In the Game, protecting one's sources is everything.

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Then the National Security Advisor goes in front of the White House and does publicist 101 shit and denies something that no one even claimed to have happened.

McMaster says that "at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed." But The Post's reporting doesn't say that they were.

Instead, the report states clearly only that Trump discussed an Islamic State plot and the city where the plot was detected by an intelligence-gathering partner. Officials worried that this information could lead to the discovery of the methods and sources involved, but it didn't say Trump discussed them.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.chicagotr...y,amp.html

And this too is disingenuous, because oftentimes, the simple possession of a particular bit of information can give clues to sources and/or methods.

Damage control, and shoddy, at that.