{"id":16689,"date":"2017-05-20T13:24:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-20T20:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=16689"},"modified":"2017-05-20T13:25:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T20:25:06","slug":"trump-shared-highly-classified-info-with-russians-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/trump-shared-highly-classified-info-with-russians-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Shared \u2018Highly Classified\u2019 Info with Russians: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the Oval Office as he departs the White House in Washington, D.C., May 19. (Ji, Watson\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n

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@Siliconeer #Siliconeer #Russia #HighlyClassified #TheWhiteHouse #Trump \u2013 President Donald Trump has been accused of sharing \u201chighly classified\u201d information with the Russian foreign minister and the country\u2019s ambassador in Washington, D.C., during a White House meeting last week, but the Trump asserted, May 16, that he has an \u201cabsolute right\u201d to do so, writes Lalit K. Jha.<\/b><\/p>\n

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President Trump had revealed highly classified details to minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the meeting, The Washington Post<\/i> reported, citing current and former U.S. officials, who said the president\u2019s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

Though the U.S. president is allowed to declassify and share classified information at any moment, the issue has sparked a huge uproar over whether Trump compromised national security by disclosing the details to Russia, long considered a hostile country to the U.S.<\/p>\n

The report alleges that Trump shared information about laptops on planes, which was given to the U.S. by an ally who did not give consent for it to be shared with Russia.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the allegations, Trump tweeted, \u201cAs president I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled White House meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining…to terrorism and airline flight safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHumanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) stands next to a photograph of President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol May 17, in Washington, D.C. House Democrats have introduced legislation to create an outside, independent commission to investigate possible connections between President Donald Trump and Russian officials. If Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) does not support the legislation then Democrats said they will file a discharge petition to force a vote on the measure. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In another tweet, Trump warned those who were \u201cleaking\u201d information. \u201cI have been asking director Comey and others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the leakers in the intelligence community,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Comey, who was leading a probe into possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia, was fired as FBI director a day before last week\u2019s White House meeting.<\/p>\n

During a media interaction with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, Trump continued to appear defiant in the face of criticism over the meeting with Russian officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia. Our fight is against ISIS,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible and that\u2019s one of the beautiful things that\u2019s happening with Turkey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship that we have together (U.S. and Turkey), we\u2019ll be unbeatable,\u201d Trump said, side-stepping questions over the meeting with Russian officials.<\/p>\n

Earlier at a White House briefing, his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster defended Trump saying, \u201cConversation with Russian foreign minister was wholly appropriate with our national security. No compromise with national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president was meeting with a foreign minister on terrorist threat. It was wholly appropriate to share the information as a basis for common action against terrorist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president in no way compromised sources and method of national security. National Security is at risk by leaks like this,\u201d said McMaster, who was present at the meeting with Russian officials at the White House.<\/p>\n

From the very beginning of the Trump presidency, his administration has been hit by a series of leaks. Trump and his team allege that this was being done at the behest of those who are still loyal to the previous Obama government.<\/p>\n

The Post<\/i> has stood by its report, saying the president acknowledges that \u201cfacts\u201d were shared with Russian envoys.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
House Democrats display a photograph of President Donald Trump welcoming Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the White House during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol, May 17, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s tweets tried to explain away the news, which emerged late May 15, that he had shared sensitive, \u2018code-word\u2019 information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a White House meeting last week, a disclosure that intelligence officials warned could jeopardize a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State,\u201d the daily said.<\/p>\n

The allegations were earlier refuted by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and also by McMaster, who said that there was no discussion of specific threats with the Russians.<\/p>\n

Tillerson said: \u201cDuring that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMaster has previously said Trump and Lavrov \u201creviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation.\u201d \u201cAt no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described the story as false to reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of State, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn\u2019t happen,\u201d McMaster said.<\/p>\n

The report, quoting an unnamed U.S. official, said, \u201cThis (the information shared) is code-word information.\u201d Code-word information is a terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies, the daily reported.<\/p>\n

Trump \u201crevealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies,\u201d the newspaper said, adding that following this, U.S. officials have gone into damage-control mode.<\/p>\n

According to the daily, the sensitive, classified information was given to the U.S. by one of its allies, which had not given it permission to share it with the Russians.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has also vehemently denied the allegations. \u201cThis story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced,\u201d said Dina Powell, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy, who also attended the meeting.<\/p>\n

But Opposition Democratic party and several lawmakers from Trump\u2019s own Republican party expressed concern over the episode. The Democratic party and its leadership called for appointment of a special prosecutor to probe for links between Trump, his team and the Russians.<\/p>\n

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that if the news reports are true, Trump has \u201ccompromised a key source of intelligence collection\u201d against the Islamic State and jeopardized the security of the American people.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if President Trump unwittingly blew a highly classified code-word source to the Russians, that would be dangerous enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the president outed a highly classified code-word source intentionally, that would be even more dangerous,\u201d Pelosi said.<\/p>\n

She demanded that Congress must be given a full briefing on the extent of the damage President Trump has done in compromising highly classified code-word intelligence to the Russians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

@Siliconeer #Siliconeer #Russia #HighlyClassified #TheWhiteHouse #Trump \u2013 President Donald Trump has been accused of sharing \u201chighly classified\u201d information with the Russian foreign minister and the country\u2019s ambassador in Washington, D.C., during a White House meeting last week, but the Trump asserted, May 16, that he has an \u201cabsolute right\u201d to do so, writes Lalit K. Jha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[2382,3277,50,89,147,3140],"class_list":["post-16689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-current-affairs","tag-donald-trump","tag-highly-classified","tag-india","tag-russia","tag-siliconeer","tag-us"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}