I'm glad you liked that because it ignores that the president has the broad power to declassify anything for any reason at any time without any process requirements. An aide could have handed Trump a document with 'Top Secret - Classified' stamped in red ink across the face of it and Trump had the power to decide on the spot that it was no longer classified and he could immediately communicate the contents to whomever he wanted. The limitations on Trump was that he wasn't allowed to take or destroy the only copy of a thing. All records had to be preserved.
I recall that incident. He has the power you describe, but we should not tolerate him being this casual with intelligence. This was Trump. The attention span of a gnat, who seldom, if ever, took the responsibilities of his office seriously. Because he had the power then, does not mean we shrug, and say “that Trump. What a scamp!” (Not that anyone here is saying that, but the response to what Trump did at the time was not so forgiving).The quote fish focused on revealed how stunningly casual Trump was in revealing the classified intelligence of an ally(Israel) to the Russians:
“This is not intelligence that the United States gathered or owned. It wasn't up to the United States to share, and so doing so really jeopardizes that relationship. It potentially damages trust that's critical in these kinds of arrangements. And I think that's one of the really big worries here," Miller told NPR. "And in this case it's important, because this is apparently an ongoing stream of intelligence into Islamic State plotting. I mean, what could be more important?"
BuzzFeed also confirmed The Post's report, with one U.S. official saying that the disclosures from the president to the Russians were "far worse than what has already been reported."
The
New York Times also noted that "Trump's disclosure does not appear to have been illegal — the president has the power to declassify almost anything. But sharing the information without the express permission of the ally who provided it represented a major breach of espionage etiquette and could jeopardize a crucial intelligence-sharing relationship."
The Washington Post reported that the president revealed "highly classified information" to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, possibly jeopardizing future intelligence gathering on ISIS.
www.npr.org
Like Trump gives a **** about allies and sensitive intelligence. I can’t imagine the DOJ and FBI doing this, knowing full well the political firestorm that would surely erupt from the Republicans, without betting they had a winning hand in the long haul. If they’re going to set this level of precedent, I think they believe that winning hand is the evidence they believe existed at Mar-a-Lago that justifies the precedent. Winning as in evidence of a crime, not Garland acting for Biden.
