Analyzing the Trump/Russia Intelligence Story
So, let's have a little analytical look at the story.
First of all, every U.S. person in the room denies it, specifically saying no "sources and methods" were disclosed. Remember that, it's important.
Apparently, the Trump people did report to the NSA and CIA what they talked about with the Russians, and that some of it was highly classified. Following that, the story was leaked by "current and former U.S. officials," speaking anonymously, of course.
One thing we know -- since we know exactly who was in the meeting -- is that these "current and former officials" were not in the meeting. The second thing we know is that -- well, let's work backward a bit. "Current officials" work for the current administration. "Former officials" must have worked for some previous administration. Those would be the Obama administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and the previous Bush administration. Of course, of that list, only Obama administration officials are likely to still be cleared for anything like this, so it's a fair guess "former officials" means "former Obama administration officials."
So, rewriting the lede with this, we have: "President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, as reported by unnamed sources who are current officials, or who were Obama administration officials, and who were not present at the meeting."
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So, now what we know is that these anonymous sources were so alarmed about what Trump told the Russians that they immediately got in touch with Washington Post reporters and ... revealed the same information to them?
Okay, so now I'm getting a little bit suspicious.
So, let's have a little analytical look at the story.
First of all, every U.S. person in the room denies it, specifically saying no "sources and methods" were disclosed. Remember that, it's important.
Apparently, the Trump people did report to the NSA and CIA what they talked about with the Russians, and that some of it was highly classified. Following that, the story was leaked by "current and former U.S. officials," speaking anonymously, of course.
One thing we know -- since we know exactly who was in the meeting -- is that these "current and former officials" were not in the meeting. The second thing we know is that -- well, let's work backward a bit. "Current officials" work for the current administration. "Former officials" must have worked for some previous administration. Those would be the Obama administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and the previous Bush administration. Of course, of that list, only Obama administration officials are likely to still be cleared for anything like this, so it's a fair guess "former officials" means "former Obama administration officials."
So, rewriting the lede with this, we have: "President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, as reported by unnamed sources who are current officials, or who were Obama administration officials, and who were not present at the meeting."
[clip]
So, now what we know is that these anonymous sources were so alarmed about what Trump told the Russians that they immediately got in touch with Washington Post reporters and ... revealed the same information to them?
Okay, so now I'm getting a little bit suspicious.
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