Why Trump should avoid talking about intelligence leaks and Israel

Some classified US intelligence documents related to Israel and a potential attack on Iran have appeared online in recent days, and although Israeli officials have said the disclosure would likely not have a significant practical impact, the disclosure of such information is nevertheless a problem. . Unsurprisingly, the FBI opened an investigation.

On its face, there is no obvious reason why this controversy would intersect with the US presidential election, although Donald Trump apparently sees some electoral value in this story.

Hours before the FBI announced its investigation, the former Republican president posted a bizarre post on his social media platform, stating:

Note how the Republican candidate went from saying “maybe come” from the Pentagon to “probably came” from the Pentagon in a few sentences.

Later in the day, Trump also claimed – without any evidence, of course – that it was an “enemy within” who leaked the intelligence documents.

Part of the problem is that the Republican candidate has no idea what he’s talking about: he has no idea who or what is responsible for the disclosure, but that hasn’t stopped him from irresponsibly engaging in baseless speculation.

Another part of the problem is that Trump continues to refer to a “leak” that may not have been a leak: as the Washington Post reported, “White House officials said he didn’t “It had not yet been determined whether the documents had been leaked or hacked.”

But even putting aside these relevant details, the former president Really Do you want to talk about the United States sharing highly classified information from Israel? Because we can have this conversation, even though Trump may not like where it ends up.

In 2017, just four months into his presidency, the Republican hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak in the Oval Office – at the request of Russia’s Vladimir Putin – to a visit that has never been fully explained.

As part of this meeting, Trump allegedly revealed highly classified information to his Russian guests for reasons that have never been explained.

“This is information in the form of code words,” a US official told the Washington Post at the time. The then-president “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we shared with our own allies.”

NBC News reported shortly after that the classified information Trump shared with Russia for unknown reasons came through…wait for it…Israel.

Seven years later, the former president was nevertheless online and wrote: “The United States has disclosed highly classified documents from Israel. …Israel no longer wants to share documents with the United States, and who can blame them!”

Self-awareness is not one of this guy’s strong points: those leaking information from Israel should not complain about someone leaking information from Israel.

At least for now, Trump, who has a remarkable record of revealing national security secrets for reasons that have not been explained, is no longer able to release classified information to the public – in part because President Joe Biden cut off his access. , and in part because he refuses to get the intelligence information to which he is entitled as a major party candidate.

The former president said that if he received sensitive information he could be accused of leaking, so he preferred to stay in the dark.

Given his long history of leaks, this made sense, but if he wins in two weeks, Trump will regain access to the nation’s secrets, which he can then start leaking again.