Why Trump Should Avoid Talking About Intelligence Leaks and Israel

Some classified US intelligence documents related to Israel and a possible attack on Iran appeared online in recent days, and while Israeli officials have said the revelation is unlikely to have a significant practical impact, however, is a problem when disseminating information like this. . Not surprisingly, the FBI has launched an investigation.

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

Hours before the FBI announced its investigation, the former Republican president posted a strange item on his social media platform, declaring:

Notice how the GOP nominee went from saying the information “may have come” from the Pentagon to “probably came” from the Pentagon in the space of a few sentences.

Later in the day, Trump also claimed – without any evidence, of course – that it was an “enemy from 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 was responsible for the leak, but that hasn’t stopped him from being irresponsible with 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 have said it has not yet been determined whether the documents were leaked or hacked.”

But even if we leave these relevant details aside, the former president does really Are you talking about the US sharing highly classified information from Israel? Because we can have this conversation, even though Trump might not like where it’s going.

In 2017, just four months into his presidency, the Republican welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak to the Oval Office — at the request of Russian Vladimir Putin— for a visit that was never fully explained.

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

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

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

Seven years later, the former president, however, was online and wrote: “The US leaked highly confidential documents from Israel. … Israel no longer wants to share documents with the US, and who can blame them! “

Self-awareness is not one of this guy’s strengths: those who leak information from Israel should not complain about someone allegedly 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 in a position to release classified information to the public, in part because President Joe Biden cut off his access , and partly because he refuses to receive the intelligence briefings to which he is entitled as a major-party candidate.

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

Given his extensive history of leaks, it made sense, although if he wins in two weeks, Trump will regain access to the nation’s secrets, which he can then start divulging again.