Trump defends disclosing information
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US President Donald Trump defended disclosing information to senior Russian officials last week, saying he had an “absolute right” to do so and had shared facts to get Moscow to step up its fight against the Islamic State militant group.
The president took to Twitter to counter a torrent of criticism, including from his fellow Republicans, after reports that during a White House meeting he had revealed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation.
Two US officials said Trump shared the intelligence, supplied by an ally of the United States in the fight against the Islamist group, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during a meeting in the Oval Office last Wednesday.
The disclosures late on Monday roiled the administration as it struggled to move past the backlash over Trump’s abrupt sacking on May 9 of FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The turmoil has overshadowed Republican legislative priorities such as health care and tax reform and laid bare sharp divisions between the White House and US intelligence agencies, which concluded in January that Russia had tried to influence the election.
Russia has denied such meddling, and Trump bristles at any suggestion he owed his November 8 victory to Moscow.
“As president I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,” Trump said on Twitter. “Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”
In a later tweet, Trump took aim at “LEAKERS in the intelligence community,” a frequent target of his months-old administration.
Trump repeatedly assailed his Democratic rival in the presidential election, Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information by e-mail while she was secretary of state. The FBI concluded after an investigation last year that there were no grounds to pursue any charges against Clinton.
The Kremlin came to Trump’s defense yesterday, calling reports that he had disclosed classified material in the White House meeting as “complete nonsense.”
Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, issued statements saying that no sources, methods or military operations were discussed at the Russian meeting. McMaster said the story, initially reported by The Washington Post, was false.
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