The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to an episode that has renewed questions about how the White House handles sensitive
During his administration, Donald Trump was passing Israeli intelligence on to Russia. This was known WAY early in the administration – this NYT article is from May of 2017.
Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the Middle East. [ ... ] Mr. Trump said on Tuesday on Twitter that he had an “absolute right” to share information in the interest of fighting terrorism and called it a “very, very successful meeting” in a brief appearance later Tuesday at the White House alongside President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters that he was not concerned that information sharing among intelligence partners would stop. “What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he’s engaged,” General McMaster said at a White House briefing, seeking to play down the sensitivity of the information Mr. Trump disclosed.
Trump is a blabbermouth who has never had a good record on keeping classified intelligence to himself. Anybody using his Mar-a-Lago bathroom could browse nuclear secrets while trying to complete their digestion of well-done Trump steaks with ketchup.
Israel’s concerns about the Trump White House’s handling of classified information were foreshadowed in the Israeli news media this year. Newspapers there reported in January that American officials warned their Israeli counterparts to be careful about what they told the Trump administration because it could be leaked to the Russians, given Mr. Trump’s openness toward President Vladimir V. Putin. “The Russians have the widest intelligence collection mechanism in the world outside of our own. They can put together a good picture with just a few details,” said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the C.I.A. who served in Moscow in the 1990s and later ran the C.I.A.’s Russia program for three years. “They can marry President Trump’s comments with their own intelligence, and intelligence from their allies. They can also deploy additional resources to find out details.”
So, did any Israeli intelligence that Trump gave to Putin then go to Iran which passed it on to Hamas?
Mike Pence was Trump's vice president and Nikki Haley was Trump's ambassador to the UN at the time Trump was passing secrets on to Putin's foreign minister. They are both candidates for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. It's particularly hypocritical for Haley to try to somehow blame Biden for the current situation in Israel.
Republicans do have a poor record on dealing with intelligence this century. George W. Bush famously ignored a 06 August 2021 presidential intelligence brief warning of an attack by al Qaeda. We all know what happened five weeks later.
A vote for Republicans, especially Trump, is a vote for passing classified secrets to America's enemies.
The world is becoming more chaotic; no American should add to that chaos by putting Trump back in power.
