It looks to me like you went out and did it. It’s the right way to do it. I think he could do it. I think he’s done it before, in the first quarter of a race.”
Lance Stewart is a contributor to ESPN.com. You can contact him at lrose1701@aol.com.
ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple discusses the potential fallout for Trump over the revelation that he shared highly classified information about terrorism with Russian officials, and explains why the White House has already apologized. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)
The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple discusses the potential fallout for Trump over the revelation that he shared highly classified information about terrorism with Russian officials, and explains why the White House has already apologized. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)
The White House on Wednesday said President Trump accepted responsibility for sharing details about an Islamic State plot with Russia during a meeting last week without informing top officials of the sensitive details.
The White House’s statement acknowledged that Trump had disclosed the plot to the Russians but said it was “prudent for the president to have done so in order to be completely transparent.”
But it provided no evidence of Trump’s knowledge of the plot or how it related to an Islamic State terrorist threat to the United States. This is also the second time Trump has gone beyond the bounds of his legal authority when sharing classified information.
We’ve seen a lot of speculation over the last few days about Trump’s actions. He did tell his national security adviser that he might “let” Flynn “go” after he misled White House officials about the substance of a briefing on Russian election-related hacking, the nature of that discussion and the substance of a separate intelligence-gathering process.
Here’s an explanation of the situation that makes sense: The administration has been at war with intelligence officials and their organizations, and Flynn probably had some information that he was not supposed to have. The president had to know he was not supposed to share that with the Russians, especially when Flynn is a key figure in the counterintelligence investigation, which is what has been disclosed.
Now the White House is admitting that the president’s legal authority allowed him to share with the Russians details that were known to the American people — which is a little bit different than admitting that he did so legally and knew everything he needs to know in order to