Alan Dershowitz: 'This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president'

As reports reverberate throughout Washington that President Trump shared highly classified information with two Russian officials in the White House last week, pundits and lawmakers are attempting to make sense of the news.

Legal scholar and CNN contributor Alan Dershowitz had a particularly blunt assessment:

"This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president," Dershowitz said on CNN. "Let's not minimize it."

The Washington Post first reported Trump's sharing of the information, which it said jeopardized a key source of intelligence on ISIS, citing current and former US officials.

The report comes as the White House deals with fallout from Trump's unexpected firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Trump's possible ties to Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

But Monday's news overshadowed Comey's dismissal, Dershowitz said.

"Comey is in the wastebasket of history. Everything else is off the table," he said.

Trump is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia and Israel next week, his first international trip since taking office. Monday's reports are going to create "a terrible problem" as Trump prepares to embark on the trip, Dershowitz said.

Listen to Dershowitz's comments below: