There’s been an avalanche of news over the past week, but here’s one report that shouldn’t be buried:
The Trump administration reportedly revealed information to Russians that CNN was asked not to report https://t.co/FPq6finPDa pic.twitter.com/mGmRMOUqgr
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) May 16, 2017
To jog your memory: The Washington Post dropped what seemed to be the biggest bombshell of the Trump presidency on Monday. The Post reported that during an Oval Office meeting with Russian officials, President Trump revealed highly-classified intelligence the United States received from another country about an ISIS bomb plot. “Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat,” the Post reported. “The Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.”
On Tuesday morning, Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster claimed Trump’s disclosures were “wholly appropriate,” but he also seemed to confirm some key facts in the Post story, including the fact that Trump revealed the name of the city in which some intelligence about the bomb plot was collected. “It was nothing that you would not know from open-source reporting,” McMaster said.
But on Tuesday evening, Jake Tapper reported that CNN was told in March by the Trump administration that reporting that fact would get people killed. “By reporting the city’s name, Trump administration officials insisted, that would tip off American adversaries about sources and methods used to gather the intelligence. It would, they insisted, get people killed,” Tapper said. “CNN did not report the details; CNN did not report the name of the city.”
On Wednesday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD emailed several White House officials to ask if they could confirm or deny CNN’s reporting, or provide any additional context that would substantiate McMaster’s claim that revealing the city’s name wasn’t a big deal. As of Thursday morning, none of the White House officials had replied.
There’s still much we don’t know for certain about what was said in the Oval Office by Trump to the Russian officials. (Left-leaning BuzzFeed and conservative Erick Erickson both report that what Trump actually revealed is worse than what’s been publicly reported.) To clear the air, the Trump administration should release the notes from the meeting, but CNN’s reporting and McMaster’s public comments Tuesday seem to confirm the most damning detail of the Washington Post report.
