An American spymaster reportedly told Israeli counterparts that Putin has 'leverages of pressure' over Trump
Russian Foreign Ministry Photo via AP
- US intelligence officials warned Israeli counterparts to "be careful" in January because they believed Russian President Vladimir Putin had "leverages of pressure" over President Donald Trump.
- It is now known that Trump shared highly classified Israeli intelligence with top Russian diplomats in the Oval Office in May.
- The White House has defended Trump's information sharing, but various Israeli intelligence officials are now wary of Trump's motives, a new report says.
Just weeks before President Donald Trump's inauguration, US and Israeli intelligence officials met in Virginia to discuss information sharing amid what was then a White House in transition.
As the meeting came to a close, a US official warned that American intelligence agencies had come to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin had "leverages of pressure" over Trump and that the Israelis should "be careful," according to a new Vanity Fair report, which relied on multiple accounts from Israeli intelligence officials.
Months later, that warning became a reality. Just one day after he fired former FBI Director James Comey, Trump met with two high-ranking Russian diplomats in the Oval Office.
During the meeting - which the US press was barred from attending - Trump shared highly classified information about the Islamic State with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, according to the report.
Kislyak is reportedly a focus in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
According to the Vanity Fair report, Trump shared Israeli intelligence details about a terror plot involving ISIS. The Washington Post first reported that the information had been provided to the US "through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government."
"It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary," national security adviser H.R. McMaster said in defense of Trump at the time.
'Trump betrayed us'
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
"The first is that this kind of intelligence is not shared with visiting foreign ministers or local ambassadors. It's shared through intelligence channels. The second is that, before sharing any classified intelligence with foreign partners, it has to go back to the originating agency to ensure that revealing it won't compromise sources, methods, and future collection capabilities," Brennan said.
Russia has allied with Iran in the Middle East in an effort to defeat ISIS and prop up the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. The root of Israeli intelligence officials' concerns about Trump's disclosures to the Russians is that once Moscow has obtained certain information, that can be easily transferred to Iran.
"Trump betrayed us," one senior Israeli military official told Vanity Fair. "And if we can't trust him, then we're going to have to do what is necessary on our own if our back is up against the wall with Iran."
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