Why Trump should avoid talking about intelligence leaks and Israel

Some classified US intelligence documents related to Israel and a possible attack on Iran have appeared online in recent days, and while officials in Israel have said the revelation is unlikely to have any meaningful practical impact, it is nevertheless a problem when this kind of information is revealed . . It’s no surprise that the FBI has launched an investigation.

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

Hours before the FBI announced its investigation, the former Republican president published a strange message on his social media platform, stating:

Notice how, in the course of a few sentences, the Republican candidate went from saying the information “may have come” from the Pentagon to “probably came” from the Pentagon.

Later in the day, Trump also claimed – without a shred of evidence, of course – that it was an “enemy from within” who had 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 revelation, but that doesn’t stop him from irresponsibly launching into baseless speculation .

Another part of the problem is that Trump keeps referring 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 set aside these pertinent details, so does the former president Real Do you want to talk about the United States sharing highly classified information from Israel? Because we can have that conversation, even though Trump may not like where it ends up.

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

As part of the meeting, Trump reportedly revealed highly classified information to his Russian guests for reasons that were never explained.

“This is codeword 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 the classified information Trump shared with Russia for unknown reasons came through…wait for it…Israel.

Seven years later, the former president was online anyway 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 man’s strengths: those who leak information from Israel should not complain about someone who allegedly leaks information from Israel.

At least for now, Trump, who has a notable 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 has restricted his access cut off , and in part because he refuses to get the intelligence briefings he is entitled to as a nominee for a major role.

The former president said that if he were to receive the sensitive information, he could be accused of leaking it, so he would prefer to remain in the dark.

That made sense given his extensive history of leaks, but if he wins in two weeks, Trump will regain access to the country’s secrets, which he can then begin to reveal again.