President Trump declared on Twitter early Tuesday that he had an "absolute right" to share with top Russian officials information about an Islamic State threat during a White House meeting last week.
He spoke out after multiple news accounts emerged that he had disclosed classified information to the Russian officials, possibly jeopardizing a relationship with an intelligence-sharing ally.
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
Mr. Trump spoke about highly classified intelligence in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, last week, a current and a former American government official told The New York Times on Monday. The news was first reported by The Washington Post, and soon after, many organizations — including Buzzfeed, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and The Times — quickly published their own accounts of the disclosure.
Mr. Trump's national security adviser, H. R. McMaster, issued a statement denying that Mr. Trump had disclosed intelligence methods or sources. But The Post and the other news organizations did not report that he had done so. Instead, they focused on the breach of espionage etiquette; the possibility that American allies might be discouraged from sharing intelligence with the United States; and Mr. Trump's tendency to go off-script, at times to the chagrin of his advisers.
Also on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry denied that Mr. Trump had given classified information to Russian officials — and denigrated American news reports of the disclosure as "fake."
"I just landed in Madrid," the spokeswoman, Maria V. Zakharova, wrote on Facebook. "I turned on the phone, and there were dozens of messages. 'Maria Vladimirova, is it true Trump revealed the most important secret?' "
Ms. Zakharova called the report "the latest fake," and disparaged the newspapers that published it. "Guys, you are again reading American newspapers? You should not read them. They can be used in various ways, but there's no need to read them — lately, this is not only harmful, but dangerous."
She did not specify in what ways the newspapers should be used.
Ms. Zakharova said she predicted last Thursday, the day after the meeting, that American news organizations were preparing a "sensation" about the meeting. The news media's plan included, she wrote, publishing secret photographs to "give this latest fake grounding and legitimacy."
"This part of the information campaign we destroyed, having published photographs in accordance with all laws of professional ethics."
She did not elaborate.
The intelligence that Mr. Trump disclosed, according to officials, was about an Islamic State plot. Both Russia and the United States are battling the terrorist group. But the disclosure could have inadvertently unmasked the methods and spies of an American ally working inside Syria who had provided it to the United States, while Russia and the United States are backing opposite sides in the Syrian civil war.
This is breaking news from the New York Times on May 16, 2017.
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May 16, 2017