At a meeting at the White house last week, the President, trump revealed to the Russian Minister of foreign Affairs and Ambassador top secret information, about what you say current and former officials. They note that disclosure of trump information, jeopardize the most important source of information about the “Islamic state” (banned in Russia organization — approx. TRANS.).
The information revealed trump was obtained from the American partner through a network of intelligence exchange. This network is considered so secret that information about it United States secret, even from allies, and access it inside the American government severely restricted.
The American partner did not give US permission to disclose the information received in Russia. According to officials, the decision to trump to disclose it jeopardizes cooperation with an ally that has access to the internal activities of the “Islamic state”. After the meeting, trump with Russian high-ranking officials from the White house undertook efforts to limit the damage by calling in the CIA and the national security Agency.
“This is particularly important information with limited access” — said one us official, using the term in the American intelligence agencies indicated extremely classified information. Trump “said the Russian Ambassador more than we talked to our allies.”
About this step, trump became known on the background of increasing legal and political pressure on the President in connection with allegations of ties between members of his team and Russia. Last week trump fired FBI Director James Comey (James B. Comey) in the midst of the investigation of possible communications of his campaign with Russia. After a while trump has recognized that in making that decision, he was guided by “the situation with Russia”, after which his critics have accused him of trying to obstruct justice.
The day after the dismissal of Komi trump was found in the oval office with the Minister of foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov and Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, who became a key figure in the investigation of the “Russian case”. According to the American officials, during this meeting trump began to describe the details of the threat posed by the terrorists of ISIL and the related use of laptops in airplanes.
In the case of any other representative of the U.S. government the discussion of these topics with the enemy it would be a crime. But, as President, trump has very broad powers and the right to disclose state secrets, therefore, passing secret information to the Russians, he hardly broke the law.
White house officials informed about the meeting, emphasized that trump has only discussed General issues relating to the activities of terrorists.
“The President and the foreign Minister reviewed the list of General threats from terrorist organizations, to make him a threat to aviation, — said the adviser on national security, G. R. McMaster (H. R. McMaster) who participated in the meeting. — The participants of the meeting did not discuss sources and methods of intelligence, and did not speak of such military operations, which previously has not publicly reported”.
Monday, may 15, McMaster said it his statement at the White house, calling the article in the Washington Post “fake”, but declined to answer related questions.
In their statements, the White house officials emphasized that trump has not discussed the specific sources and methods of intelligence, instead of trying to answer the question, disclose whether trump information obtained from secret sources.
The CIA declined to comment on the situation, but the NSA has not responded to our requests.
But officials expressed their concern about how trump handles classified information, as well as the fact that he is not aware of the potential consequences of such behavior. According to them, the disclosure of sources of intelligence, providing US extremely important information about the activities of “Islamic state” can prevent the US and its allies to identify threats in the future.
“It’s shocking,’ said one former us official with close ties with officials of the current administration. — Trump is behaving very recklessly and, apparently, not aware of the severity of those things with which it deals, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. The situation is further aggravated by the problem of its possible ties with Russia”.
In his meeting with Lavrov trump, apparently boasted that he knows a great deal about the activities of “Islamic state”. “I get a great intelligence. My people every day tell me the news,” said the President, according to officials knowledgeable about the meeting.
During the meeting with the Russians trump started to discuss aspects of the threat on which the United States became known only thanks to the espionage activities of their key partner. He not announced the specific data collection methods, but he spoke about how the Islamic state sells individual items to your plan and how much harm can cause such an attack under various circumstances. But, according to officials, more anxiety was the fact that trump called the city on the territory controlled by “Islamic state” in which the partner of American intelligence detected a threat.
Edition of the Washington Post does not publish most of the detail of the plan, including the name of the city, at the request of officials, warned that disclosure of this information would jeopardize critical sources of intelligence.
“Everyone knows that this channel is extremely secret, and the idea to convey to the Russians the information about it in such detail is disturbing,” said one former high-ranking official of the American services on struggle against terrorism, first work closely with team members at trump national security. He and the other officials asked not to call them names.
According to officials, the mention of the name of the city is a particularly serious problem because Russia can use this information to determine the partner of the US or the sources and methods of intelligence. According to officials, these sources and methods may be useful for achieving other goals, including, perhaps, to collect information about the presence of Russia in Syria. Moscow can be extremely interested to discover this source and, possibly, to interrupt his work.
Russia and the United States believes the “Islamic state” with the enemy and exchange of data on terrorist threats. However, these two countries have different objectives in Syria, where Moscow has deployed its troops and equipment to help President Bashar al-Assad.
“Russia can figure out what sources and methods we use,” said the above mentioned U.S. official.
One former official of the intelligence services of the United States had access to highly classified information about Russia, said that, given the data shared by the tramp, “I think that [Russian intelligence services] is not difficult to find out”.
In a broader sense, trump had no right to disclose this information because, in essence, she belonged to the United States. According to the norms of conducting espionage activities, governments and even individual agencies are given the right to control over how you disseminate information they collect and whether to distribute it at all. Violation of these norms and practices undermines trust, which plays a crucial role in the process of exchange of intelligence.
Officials refused to name the above-mentioned partner of the United States, however, they added that this partner has previously expressed his disappointment at the failure of Washington to keep secret information related to Iraq and Syria.
“If our partner finds out we gave it to Russia without his knowledge and without his permission, this would be a strong blow to our relations”, — said one US official.
According to officials, during the meeting with the Russians trump also described the measures that the US has already adopted or are preparing to take to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria, as well as other steps taken to ensure safety.
Officials did not give details of such measures, however, recently the Department of homeland security announced that it is considering to ban to carry in your hand Luggage laptops and other electronic devices passengers flying between the European countries and the USA. In March, the US and the UK have already introduced such a ban, which is immediately felt by passengers flying through airports 10 predominantly Muslim countries.
Explaining these measures, trump leads a pretty sad argument. “Do you believe that the world we live in today?— he said, according to one official. — Hasn’t the world gone mad?”
At a meeting in the oval office Lavrov and Kislyak was accompanied by their assistants.
Photographing the meeting was led by Russian photographer, and then pictures of him were published on the website of the Russian news Agency TASS. American news publications failed to obtain permission to attend this meeting.
Senior White house officials quickly enough recognized that trump crossed the border and tried to minimize the consequences. Thomas Bossert (Thomas P. Bossert), assistant to the President for homeland security and combating terrorism, contacted the heads of the CIA and NSA — with agencies, is directly involved in the process of sharing intelligence with partner States.
One of the subordinates of the Bossert also stated the need to include highly classified information, announced by trump during the meeting, internal memos and to make full transcript of the conversation was available only to a narrow circle of officials. In his opinion, this is necessary in order to prevent further dissemination of classified information and leaks.
White house officials defended trump. “This article is true, said Dina Powell (Powell Dina), Deputy national security adviser on strategy. — The President only discussed the common threats faced by both countries.”
However, White house officials could not explain why officials deemed it necessary to inform the CIA and the NSA.
Senator Bob Corker (Bob Corker) said he would prefer to comment on an article published in the Washington Post, when “I’ll know a bit more about this whole situation,” but added: “Obviously now they found themselves in a vicious circle, and now they need to find a way to deal with what is happening. The saddest thing is that now there is a really good team of experts on issues of national security.”
Corker added that “the chaos that stems from a lack of discipline creates an atmosphere, from my point of view, very disturbing.”
Trump has repeatedly overstepped my bounds in dealing with senior officials of foreign States, and the most striking example was his first conversation with the Prime Minister of Australia earlier this year. He was also criticized for the extreme negligence that he showed in his residence Mar-a-Lago, where he obviously left the preliminary reports on the launching of missiles developed by North Korea, in full view of their guests.
According to us officials, the national security Council continues to prepare for the trump multi-page reports, which should serve him a kind of instructions in communicating with foreign leaders, but he insists that the content of all these manuals were briefly outlined on one page, and often simply ignores them.
“The impression that he doesn’t understand what is classified and what isn’t. It bothers me the most,” said one former official.
According to officials, the reaction Lavrov on revelation trump was restrained, and he just encouraged US to cooperate more closely with Russia in the fight against terrorism.
In a compromising stories about the relationships of the team trump with Russia the name Kislyak was quoted quite often. The first adviser to trump national security issues, Michael Flynn (Michael Flynn) was forced to retire, having worked on the post of 24 days, because of the contact with Kislyak. The General Prosecutor Jeff Seshns (Jeff Sessions) had to refuse participation in procedures associated with the “Russian case” the FBI, after it became known that he also met and talked with Kislyak, despite the fact that he denied meeting with the Russian Ambassador at the hearings on his confirmation in office of the attorney General.
“Sure, Kislyak sent a great message to the Kremlin, in which he described all the details that he learned from trump,” said a former official of the American intelligence services.
In a brief report on the meeting with Lavrov trump and Kislyak published on the website of the White house, the discussion of the terrorist threat is not mentioned.
“Trump has placed emphasis on the need to cooperate in order to end the conflict in Syria,” — said in the report. The President also “raised the issue of Ukraine and underlined his willingness to improve relations between the US and Russia.”
