Trump revealed intelligence secrets to Russians in Oval Office - officials

[Rob13]

Just now, pegman said:

 

that Trump has harmed the security of his country.

No doubt, if it's true the end result could be along the lines of the US having to go it alone because nobody trusts it anymore. It'd be good to hear what was actually said and happened. If it's true hopefully trump will face the appropriate consequences for a change.

 

This might change the tide of support he has in Congress.

[In the jungle]

Surely Trump can produce the 'tape' to prove his version of events 

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, pegman said:

Fair share? For what, fixing the American's stupendous screw ups? WMD's? Their quest for imperialism is on them. 

So you are fine if the US withdraws from security arrangements with countries like South Korea, where the new president is openly anti USA?

I am. Let them defend themselves and pay the full cost.

[Rob13]

12 minutes ago, myfriendu said:

Then they forgot to take into account the fact that there were only 4 people in the room -- would one of them be so monumentally stupid at this point to risk geting easily tracked and caught passing information?

 

 

It wouldn't have to be someone in the room. Just someone close enough to know what went on in the room. Granted it's weak and would probably be inadmissible as evidence in court.  It's too soon to dismiss it though, especially as it's very believable trump is retarded and weak enough to have done it.

[impulse]

1 hour ago, Traveler19491 said:

It has grown downright wearisome listening to the right in their never-ending efforts to deflect. What LBJ or Kennedy may or may not have done 40-50 years ago have precisely zero bearing on what Comrade Trump has done. Whatever LBJ or Kennedy did may well have been deserving of criticism, but again, that was 40-50 years ago and is irrelevant. 

 

Of course, precedent is relevant.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of The Donald.  Never have been.  But I am a huge fan of the fact that a private citizen has broken the stranglehold on high office that's been clutched firmly by the Republicrats and the Demicans for my entire lifetime.  I wish it were someone besides Trump.  I really do.  But he's the guy that suited up, took the field. 

 

And it was only his arrogance and outsized ego that saw him through when all the other potential citizens have dropped out or shrunk from the fight since Perot, Nader and all the others.  

 

So I'm going to cut the guy some slack while he gets his sea legs underneath him, especially since every career politician on both sides of the crooked aisle are scared to death that he's the start of a trend that's going to dash their dreams of riding their party's gravy train to the top office if only they suck up to the party elite for a few more cycles.  They'll do anything to discredit the guy and get back on their career path.  With mainstream media eager to help- for their own reasons.

 

Maybe in 2020, we'll get a private citizen that will bring us back to the government the founding fathers envisioned.  If we do, it will only be because Trump was arrogant and egotistical enough to stay in the race and open the door for them.  And if that happens, that's a good thing on whole, no matter how bad Trump looks in the slanted media.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by impulse

[thaibeachlovers]

5 minutes ago, Rob13 said:

 

It wouldn't have to be someone in the room. Just someone close enough to know what went on in the room. Granted it's weak and would probably be inadmissible as evidence in court.  It's too soon to dismiss it though, especially as it's very believable trump is retarded and weak enough to have done it.

You were doing OK with the reasonable reply till you let your Trump hatred destroy your argument.

It's saying things like trump is retarded and weak that cause the non partisan observer to ignore anything the Trump haters have to say.

[Morch]

5 hours ago, oilinki said:

Hih, the most dangerous enemy of USA is the president itself. 

USA, you do have a big problem, which need to be taken care of.

 

Meanwhile the rest of us will not share information with the USA as your president leaks to the Russians.

 

Fantasies and delusions of grandeur aside, doubt that you have any concrete insight with regard to foreign intelligence agencies withholding information sharing with their US counterparts. Not that I defend Trump, as the security breach (which despite Trump supporters attempts to obfuscate) did occur, simply pointing out that direct and immediate consequences such as mentioned above aren't likely.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Of course, precedent is relevant.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of The Donald.  Never have been.  But I am a huge fan of the fact that a private citizen has broken the stranglehold on high office that's been clutched firmly by the Republicrats and the Demicans for my entire lifetime.  I wish it were someone besides Trump.  I really do.  But he's the guy that suited up, took the field. 

 

And it was only his arrogance and outsized ego that saw him through when all the other potential citizens have dropped out or shrunk from the fight since Perot, Nader and all the others.  

 

So I'm going to cut the guy some slack while he gets his sea legs underneath him, especially since every career politician on both sides of the crooked aisle are scared to death that he's the start of a trend that's going to dash their dreams of riding their party's gravy train to the top office if only they suck up to the party elite for a few more cycles.  They'll do anything to discredit the guy and get back on their career path.  With mainstream media eager to help- for their own reasons.

 

Maybe in 2020, we'll get a private citizen that will bring us back to the government the founding fathers envisioned.  If we do, it will only be because Trump was arrogant and egotistical enough to stay in the race and open the door for them.  And if that happens, that's a good thing on whole, no matter how bad Trump looks in the slanted media.

 

It's not often we get a reasoned and relevant post among the Trump hatred. Most non partisan TVF members don't even bother to go on the Trump threads.

Well done and keep up the good work.

[Morch]

5 hours ago, darksidedog said:

What I find equally as disturbing as Donald giving these secrets to the Russians is how McMaster and Tillerson seem to be trying to gloss it over and pretend it didn't happen. Protecting the boss is admirable, but with this boss, a total waste of time. He is unpredictable, unreliable, ungrateful and  untrustworthy.

Glossing it over, or applying the "fix" is the normal way of dealing with such situations. Can't very well come out in the open and confirm details. On another level, though, there will surely be a different exchange of words between respective heads of intelligence agencies.

[Rob13]

Just now, thaibeachlovers said:

You were doing OK with the reasonable reply till you let your Trump hatred destroy your argument.

It's saying things like trump is retarded and weak that cause the non partisan observer to ignore anything the Trump haters have to say.

 

 My opinion of him aside, he's still innocent til proven guilty. IMHO, WaPo and NYT both are overly biased, and are too quick to to publish negative news on him..... WaPo would have done well to sit on the story a bit til they had more facts and could give more info on their source.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

8 minutes ago, Rob13 said:

 

 My opinion of him aside, he's still innocent til proven guilty. IMHO, WaPo and NYT both are overly biased, and are too quick to to publish negative news on him..... WaPo would have done well to sit on the story a bit til they had more facts and could give more info on their source.

 

It is, IMO, obvious that those papers are firmly in the anti Trump camp and actively campaigning for his ousting. To expect them to show restraint on any anti Trump story is like thinking the tide won't come in every day.

[Rob13]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It is, IMO, obvious that those papers are firmly in the anti Trump camp and actively campaigning for his ousting. To expect them to show restraint on any anti Trump story is like thinking the tide won't come in every day.

 

Agreed, they're as bad as Fox and Breitbart for biasedness. I pretty much quit reading NYT when they were backing HRC so hard. Bad reporting that read like cheap paid advertising. One thing  I'd like to see come out of all this fake news bs it's that reporters get back to just reporting the news and leave the opinions and propaganda for the op-ed pages. 

[55Jay]

The rush to judgement is the chickens coming home to roost though.  The Tweets.  The off the cuff remarks and lack of finesse.  Trump has laid the ground work for this climate, no use whining about the unfair coverage, gossip and leaks, and lack of cooperation.  It's one thing to be a maverick and punch the establishment and system in the face, but this cat has shot himself in the foot over and over again and the MSM is doing a dog pile.

 

He apparently likes this kind of corporate combat, but you can't run an organization like this.  His staff are ready to pop from the constant "brush fire management" on top of their normal jobs.   Trump entered bunker mentality mode because he can't even take a leak without it being leaked.  He's going to flame out.  A medical emergency is not unreasonable speculation.

Edited May 16, 2017 by 55Jay

[mtls2005]

1 hour ago, myfriendu said:

Get cracking Don.

The FCC is a department that you control. An EO that causes an FCC rule.

YOU PUBLISH A STORY ON A LICENSED BROADCAST THAT YOU CANT PROVE TO BE TRUE AND YOUR LICENSED TO BROADCAST IS SUSPENDED FOR 30 DAYS.

You got the power...use it and shut these fake news site up .

keep up the good work donny ,the world needs you 

 

As Bill Maher said, "Would you like some banana with your Republic?"

 

The article was published in the Washington Post, I doubt the FCC has much "regulatory oversight" on the print media?

 

The First Amendment, pesky as it is, sort of guarantees that limits cannot be placed on a "free press".

 

If Fox News had to live up to your proposed EO, they would only be showing mattress commercials.

 

 

[Morch]

5 minutes ago, 55Jay said:

The rush to judgement is the chickens coming home to roost though.  The Tweets.  The off the cuff remarks and lack of finesse.  Trump has laid the ground work for this climate, no use whining about the unfair coverage, gossip and leaks, and lack of cooperation.  It's one thing to be a maverick and punch the establishment and system the face, but this cat has shot himself in the foot over and over again and the MSM is doing a dog pile now. 

 

He apparently likes this kind of corporate combat, but you can't run an organization like this.  His staff are ready to pop from the "brush fire management".   Trump entered bunker mentality mode because he can't even take a leak without it being leaked.  He's going to flame out.  A medical emergency is not unreasonable speculation.

 

A medical emergency is not unreasonable speculation.

 

But his doc assured the public....

[ResandePohm]

1 hour ago, Rob13 said:

If it's not illegal then he can do it. As far as owning it, the intel was given to the US freely by a trusted ally, that would clear any ownership problems. It was his intel for him to handle as he saw fit. 

 

 

Try telling that to the ally that gave the US that information and see how far you get

 

[iReason]

1 hour ago, myfriendu said:

First of all, the WaPo used annonymous sources to tell yet another raunchy fairy tale.

Then they forgot to take into account the fact that there were only 4 people in the room -- would one of them be so monumentally stupid at this point to risk geting easily tracked and caught passing information?

 

I count at least seven:

 

The current occupier of the White House

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

Known spy and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak

The Russian photographer.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster

and according to him, two other senior officials. 

 

As he mentions in this video attempting damage control while reading his prepared statement:

(Which virtually mirrors that of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson)

 

 

Washington Post: Trump leaked classified info to Russians; Administration officials deny accusations

 

"I think that the White House is playing word games," Greg Miller said on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."

 

"The Washington Post story, authored by Miller and Greg Jaffe, cited current and former US officials and said President Donald Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak about highly classified intelligence the US had received from an ally."

 

"If this was all so above-board and not problematic in any way, why did the National Security Council coming out of this meeting feel it was necessary to contact the CIA director and the director of the National Security Agency to give them a heads' up on what Trump had just told the Russians?" Miller said.

http://fox61.com/2017/05/15/washington-post-trump-leaked-classified-info-to-russians/

 

From the TV article:

 

"One of the officials said the intelligence was classified Top Secret and also held in a secure “compartment” to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access."

 

"After Trump disclosed the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services, and informed them what had happened."

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by iReason

[55Jay]

47 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Of course, precedent is relevant.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of The Donald.  Never have been.  But I am a huge fan of the fact that a private citizen has broken the stranglehold on high office that's been clutched firmly by the Republicrats and the Demicans for my entire lifetime.  I wish it were someone besides Trump.  I really do.  But he's the guy that suited up, took the field. 

 

And it was only his arrogance and outside ego that saw him through when all the other potential civilians have dropped out or shrunk from the fight since Perot, Nader and all the others.  

 

So I'm going to cut the guy some slack while he gets his sea legs underneath him, especially since every career politician on both sides of the crooked aisle are scared to death that he's the start of a trend that's going to dash their dreams of riding their party's gravy train to the top office if only they suck up to the party elite for a few more cycles.  They'll do anything to discredit the guy and get back on their career path.  With mainstream media eager to help- for their own reasons.

 

Maybe in 2020, we'll get a private citizen that will bring us back to the government the founding fathers envisioned.  If we do, it will only be because Trump was arrogant and egotistical enough to stay in the race and open the door for them.  And if that happens, that's a good thing on whole, no matter how bad Trump looks in the slanted media.

 

Nice post.  He "lost" me when he won the R nomination and didn't straight up his act.  It's getting harder to overlook the warts hoping for something good to fall out.  The confusion and disarray from within his own staff, is telling, and very discouraging.  The Media smell blood and have an axe to grind with him for sure, so to me, they lack default credibility.  I'm not riding the bandwagon on that, it's just the way it is IMO.

Edited May 16, 2017 by 55Jay

[55Jay]

4 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

A medical emergency is not unreasonable speculation.

 

But his doc assured the public....

555, I did think of that when I typed it.  And knew somebody would point that out, so 3 gold stars to you for being the first! 

[boomerangutang]

                          I've been watching this breaking story closely.  I've watched reports from over a half dozen news outlets.  Some are saying this is the biggest screw-up thus far by Trump, and that's a high bar, because he screws-up on a nearly daily basis.

 

                      From what I've pieced together, it sounds as tho the highly sensitive data concerned one or more sources (spies, if you like) based in Jordan - which relate to the weaponized laptop thing.  Those spies will likely be killed by ISIS.  because if the Russians know, they will tell Assad, and then Iran will know, and then Hezbollah, ......and so on down the line - and it won't be difficult to assess who is the infiltrator into ISIS.   Thanks Trump, for risking lives of spies working to protect US interests.   Plus, getting spies embedded into ISIS is extremely difficult.  It can take years, and lots of resources.   Trump, in 30 seconds, just screwed up a whole lot of sensitive orchestration.

 

                         McMaster and Tillerson won't/don't directly address what was reported in the NY Times and Wash.Post (2 of the most  highly respected newspapers in the world).  Instead, the talking heads make generalized statements, and then turn and walk away before fielding any questions.   The WH is in full lock-down/denial mode, which is where they're at most days.

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, myfriendu said:

3 people in the room, all of whom say 'it never happened'. so why the hell should we believe anything the fake news WaPo ever prints from here on out? what's the difference between 'the reporter just made shit up' vs. 'anonymous sources say...'??

Because in addition to the standard Spicer denials, fake news doesn't typically warrant at least two other senior Trump cabinet members, and alleged 'same room' occupants, stepping up to the media microphone to say basically that they didn't see it happening. Usually it a Trump tweet that states that something is fake news.

[mtls2005]

1 hour ago, myfriendu said:

3 people in the room, all of whom say 'it never happened'. so why the hell should we believe anything the fake news WaPo ever prints from here on out? what's the difference between 'the reporter just made shit up' vs. 'anonymous sources say...'??

 

After the meeting McMaster and the entire WH NatSec staff went into hyper-damage control mode realizing what Trump had just done. This required contacting many, many, many other organizations (CIA, State among others), and foreign partners to let them know what had happened. So now at least 100 people know about it. Then you have the Russians, who were probably relaying the intel, and were monitored by several intelligence organizations (NSA, foreign). So add a couple hundred more. Then of course the Russians might "leak" it to cause further disruptions. And the originating partner may have been upset and leaked it.

 

Why do you think it took ~ 5 days to leak?

 

It's not "fake" even though we probably all wish it weren't true. I bet there were more than seven independent sources.

 

 

 

 

[ResandePohm]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I doubt he cares that much about "allies" that won't pay their fair share and expect the US to carry the load almost alone. 

IMO he'd be justified for withdrawing and letting the lot of them suffer the consequences. It's time for the "allies" to man up and contribute in a meaningful manner.

Now you are trolling. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Trump is behaving like a moron in giving away an ally's secrets without their permission.

[iReason]

5 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

 

After the meeting McMaster and the entire WH NatSec staff went into hyper-damage control mode realizing what Trump had just done. This required contacting many, many, many other organizations (CIA, State among others), and foreign partners to let them know what had happened. So now at least 100 people know about it. Then you have the Russians, who were probably relaying the intel, and were monitored by several intelligence organizations (NSA, foreign). So add a couple hundred more. Then of course the Russians might "leak" it to cause further disruptions. And the originating partner may have been upset and leaked it.

 

Why do you think it took ~ 5 days to leak?

 

It's not "fake" even though we probably all wish it weren't true. I bet there were more than seven independent sources.

 

Who knows who was in the room? 

 

[mtls2005]

7 minutes ago, iReason said:

 

Who knows who was in the room? 

 

 

Including the TASS photographer. I'm sure he doesn't work for the SVR.

[TonyClifton]

Anonymous sources.

 

I didn't see a source quoted in the article.  

 

#FAKENEWS

[boomerangutang]

                                If I was spying on ISIS, whether from within or without (for example, their ISP/programmer, cameraman, printer of brochures, caterer, clothes mender, whatever). ...... I would immediately get as far from ISIS as humanly possible.   If there are any folks like that, the news coming out of Wash DC is like a thunderclap warning.

 

                                  Also, all countries friendly with the US, which share sensitive intel with the US, are going to take a few steps back - now knowing they can't trust anything they share with US intel services will be confidential.  All pertinent intel goes to the president's desk.  Whether he reads it or listens to it, is another matter, as he prefers to watch Fox TV.   But even so.......    it's now clear that no sensitive data can be trusted with the prez and his inner circle.

[chilli42]

5 hours ago, impulse said:

As I recall, Bobby Kennedy (on instructions from his brother) leaked classified info the the Russkies and saved the world.

 

That was after Adlai Stevenson revealed classified info to the UN- under orders from the President.

 

Given that the guy is Commander in Chief, I'd say he can decide what to tell them...

Indeed he has the right to declassify what information he pleases.  Nothing illegal here.  Was it wise?  Does it serve US interests?  Will the ally that gathered the information do so in the future?   It's a very safe bet the answer to these questions is "no".  The Kennedys managed the US and the world through one of the most dangerous situations the world has ever faced.  They did so with intelligence, resourcefulness and courage.  Trump?  It appears that he simply unleashed his ego to impress the Russians who were, I am sure, most impressed and greatful for his stupidity ... as of course ISIS will be as well.  Everyone will continue to deny this ever happened.  Who can blame them, it's the pinnacle of hubris and stupidity. You are correct though, nothing illegal.

[digger70]

I think DT knew what he was doing,the Ruskies already knew the info and he was waiting to see who in his clan was Sharing this Back.Trying to weed out the yappers ,He's not stupid old DT.

[NanLaew]

3 minutes ago, TonyClifton said:

Anonymous sources.

 

I didn't see a source quoted in the article.  

 

#FAKENEWS

See post #141. Only Trump can call things fake news. If the Whitehouse press spokesman, the NSA boss and State all make public, on the record comments on it and do NOT use the fake word, then it aint fake.