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.
“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.”
(Continues at WaPo)
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