The CNN and NYT stories are based on anonymous felony leaks from senior intelligence officials. So a bit unfair to focus exclusively on Trump as the primary security risk. it's clear Comey and Brennan believe the intelligence that suits their political goals. If they fell for the Steel "dossier" then it's hard to trust any other intelligence assessment they make. I'm dubious this Kremlin "source" is what they say he is. If he exists he realized a good business in telling Americans what they want to hear.
26
@Aurthur Phleger Trumps disloyalty to his own country is obvious and openly demonstrated on a daily basis. The media may feel better about saying Trump is harming the US intelligence agencies based on sources, but those of us with eyes know Trump is Putin's submissive because we see what Trump does.
The majority of the Steel dossier has been corroborated, and everything it says is absolutely believable when it comes to likely Trump actions in a given situation.
293
@Aurthur Phleger, except that they didn't fall for the dossier. Do you really *still think that was what started the investigation??
70
@Aurthur Phleger
Your assessment is as frightening to me as Trump's recklessness. I'll bet there are about 63 million like you out there in America and you all voted for Trump in 2016.
115
Thank you NYT and the always predictable running dog for the Deep State, Michelle Goldberg. I thank you for confirming my decision to cancel my subscription after these many years.
But be careful what you wish for. With Trump eventually no longer on the scene, what reason will there be to read the NYT? The financial health (if that is the right term) of the paper has been built on serving as an anti-Trump megaphone. The bleak financial situation improved when the entire organization forsaked news for tub-thumping. When he is gone, what then? Will the Comments claque wander around aimlessly, searching for a new horror? Well, there's always the crossword puzzle...
2
The U.S. asset in the Kremlin is gone but the Putin asset in the WH remains. He is driving off good workers in every department of government. All the citizens of the free world will be the victims.
5
Over 2 years ago I wrote here and elsewhere that it would be unlikely that foreign intelligence services would be as forthcoming with sensitive information as they had been before Trump. Does anyone think they weren't aware of Michael Flynn's behaviour? Or that Jared Kushner was possibly as compromised as Trump was? (It was the Dutch & UK services that alerted the US to the Russian connections with the Trump organisation. The Dutch also have info re Trump's finances)
The behaviour of some Congressmen in `outing' intelligence personell for partisan reasons has also probably led to a shrinking of the number of people willing to risk their lives by becoming informants internally as well.
The consequences have yet to be seen, but terrorists rely on these lapses, as do rogue nations who might have a whole lot more going on then you think.
Yes, Ally's services need to keep in America's good graces because the US has the hardware they need, like satellites, but anything more subtle involving people on the ground is probably very tightly held now.
That America cannot be relied on not to betray every agreement every 4-8 years is also a concern now. See Iran!
The fact that 40% i.e. nearly half the American people believe Trump should e re-elected will also contribute to a fear that this is a country that is so unstable that it cannot be trusted, will haunt the whole world for a very long time.
Some writers below seem to think this is a beat-up. Few non Americans do.
4
Darn. If only there were checks and balances and oversight of the Executive Branch.
5
Today's chunk of red meat for the base. The author assumed that the asset extracted in 2017 was the only asset the U.S. has and is now blind. Nonsense on its face and purely speculative but presented as fact here. More importantly it was the intelligence community itself and not Trump who made these disclosures to the press.
9
@Mkm I don't think the other assumed that at all. A source with access to the highest levels of the Kremlin would be invaluable - it makes sense that the author would paint this as a bid deal. Also, the source was extracted because of a fear of Trump exposing him, not because of the intelligence committee.
68
@Mkm How many assets do you think have close access to Vladamir Putin? What qualifies you to make these statements? Perhaps there are other assets, this one is no longer available. If you were a spy would you trust Donald "I believe him when he tells me that" Trump not to reveal your identity to his pal Vladamir? I would not. Why would you?
54
@Mkm
I am confused as to what you are talking about? the press told the russian ambassador classified secrets? the media tweeted the photo of Iran's test site destroyed? I don't think you read the article
14
It’s official: the white race is not the “superior “ race anymore
2
Why don't the dems make more noise about this sort of thing? Why am I depending on NYT columnists? Where's Chuck?
2
NYT quoting CNN, really? Wow, isn’t that the one who labeled Alabama as Mississippi on the weather map?
1
Hey Lindsay Graham -- you're a coward.
4
The many shortcomings of Trump have many parallels in history.
But revealing what his spies whisper, that... that has zero parallels in the long ugly history of demented or moronic heads of state.
3
If this individual's new identity ever comes to be known by this current president, their imminent death is a certainty.
1
Why is it taking so long to realize a crystal clarity about our president being a traitor to this country - who has been damaging it however he can? Because it's too outrageous to be true? Because all the Republicans are complicit? For fear? Money?
11
Why do the pundits all insist that Trump's handling of intelligence information is cavalier? Imagine if he means to expose certain information to the public at large, and thus to the Kremlin. While the pundits may be tired of Russiagate, there are still many people convinced that Trump is somehow trying to pay back debts through bumbling or the appearance of bumbling. Regardless of whether the bumbling has a purpose or is self-aggrandizing, this seems to be part of the impeachment package. Hillary Clinton was hoisted on her petard for revealing substantially less. Perhaps the President should not have sole power to declassify, or perhaps inadvertent blathering about classified information in a way that damages the US should be impeachable!
2
"The pundit class has mostly grown bored of the story behind Trump’s corrupt relationship with Russia."
Well that pretty much sums up Ms. Goldbergs myoptic disorder. Despite millions spent and the full embrace of Mueller as the savior of the DNC's version of Democracy, nothing was found. Nothing, nada, zip. Even the foolish tirade that he obstructed the investigation, which found no crime, won't find a court because it is a dubious violation of the law.
Instead we have an unfounded story that is trying to find another way to counter Trump. Yet if we look at the details, it becomes apparent that the information released by someone in the Intell community has made it vastly easier for the paranoid upper reaches of the Russian government to identify the traitor in their midst.
Jimmy Carter did far more damage to the US capabilities in his horrific 4 years as CIC. Publicly revealing our stealth technology eliminated a technology gap of 15+ years. His revelations about strategic NATO capabilities as well as our own use of technology to hide our subs, also allowed the Soviets to close the gap. This was at the height of the Cold War and Carter's idiocy could have cost us. Yet Ms. Goldberg would remain silent on this issue. Hmmmmmm
1
Aha. The national security state, that conglomeration of agencies, activities, and attitudes established in the aftermath of WW2 for the ostensible purpose of making the U.S. safer. Fed trillions of dollars over time, the NSS changed the way that the US related to the rest of the world while profoundly altering the workings of its own political institutions. The NSS is antithetical to democracy while secrecy, centralization, repression, and distortion are part and parcel of what is called national intelligence gathering.
3
I keep waiting for the moment when even my neighbors who swear they will never vote for a Democrat finally have had enough of Trump's bad behavior, which they grudgingly admit they don't like. Trump has been at war with our intelligence agencies and assets for years. This is not new. It's simply more public. It must be stopped.
5
@Barbara
Hope you’re not holding your breath waiting.
Trump has done (and continues to do) grave damage, no question. But it didn’t begin with him. George W. Bush’s abandonment of the high ground on torture contributed, as did Obama’s failure to enforce his “line in the sand” in Syria.
The world will never again trust America’s word or look up to us as the protectors of human dignity and decency. We have squandered our most precious asset, our good name and reputation, and we are never likely to get it back. The world of the 21st century will make other arrangements without us, and not necessarily to our liking.
2
Michelle, I enjoy your views greatly. I hope this column was not intended to be entertaining, it's down right disturbing. And there is the possibility it goes on two more years, all because the electoral collage all but guarantees it. Your column raises the question is the world safer with Trump in power. Based on this column I say NO.
4
Most common predictor of a Trump supporter is lack of a college education. Republicans have no interest in making college more accessible and affordable. It reduces the number of gullible supporters who are easy marks for Fox and other propaganda.
7
Amendment 28: Candidates for President and Vice-President must pre-qualify for Top Secret security clearances.
14
So what happens when president #2-for- brains is out of office, but still knows what he learned during his term? Does anyone think he won't try to monetize any such information?
He'll be a national security risk until the blessed day when he draws his last breath.
25
When Trump publicly announced in Helsinki that he trusted Vladimir Putin more than his own intelligence agencies, that's when the nation really entered into darkness. Even if that mole had stayed in Russia, Trump would never have believed any of his reports. Whether or not you believe these acts amount to treason, they certainly meet the standard of not protecting the American people and is an impeachable offense. Despite the fact that Mueller couldn't prove "conspiracy," he didn't disprove it either. With Trump and "Moscow Mitch" McConnell leaving our voting machines unprotected from Russian hacking in 2020, it is now vitally important finally to answer the question: Is Trump, as Hillary Clinton maintained, a "Russian puppet"?
14
What worries me is that Presidents keep their security clearance even after leaving office. We will need to create new laws to take it away from him, even after we vote him out.
22
Intentional or not, Trump has become an asset for Russia, NK and some of our other enemies. My personal guess is that the Russian oligarchs are holding a large amount of defaulted debt secured by Trump's properties. He does what he can to clumsily aid Putie and appease other world dictators he likes. When a president denigrates the CIA and other important agencies, there has to be some very strong motivating factor behind his actions. The continuing problem with him disclosing secrets must be due to his intentional effort to work against the US's best interest, wouldn't you think?
11
The other revealing word (besides “directly”) in the statement that there is “no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source” is “public”. The statement implies that there is classified evidence.
80
@Eric
Actually, non-public evidence, not necessarily classified. But thanks for writing this; now I don't have to. I'm surprised Ms. Goldberg didn't mention it; I think it could be more important than "directly".
It's certainly ironic that Adam Schiff would offer commentary on someone else's discretion and judgement.
2
@Timothy: Adam Schiff is eminently positioned to criticize Trump's total lack of discretion and horrible judgement, as is everybody with more than half a functioning braincell.
12
As with Bolton's departure, this bit o'news from Goldberg add more sand in the ball bearings than perhaps real policy disasters. With Trump, the USA suffers from daily insults to safety, intelligence, honor, and trust. The entire episodic nature of the President yelling at the press while on the White House lawn, the news as he tells it whether of hurricanes or peace treaties, of walls built and at what cost to humanity have positioned this country and all that it stood for, yes, the good bad and ugly into the latter category so firmly.
6
What can I say?
Trump / Intelligence
There's just no way to put those two things together on any level.
16
Hard to imagine how even a bumbling boob like Trump could "degrade" the "intelligence" community. Remember Karzai? The warllords in Afghanistan who Americans could trust. What about how all the Iraqi people would welcome US occupation with flowers and sweets? Not to mention "weapons of mass destruction" or how the Syrian people would rise up (behind Al Queda) to throw out Assad, or how the Libyan people would unite (again behind Al Queda) to rid the world of Qadaffi? Isn't that also the "intelligence" community which decided the best way to find a needle in a haystack was to take in the entire haystack. These are only the decisions we know about. Since the CIA never confirms or denies (unless it lies, openly) we can't know.
4
Trump is ratcheting up his efforts to destroy and dismantle governmental institutions. Just an hour ago, the FBO announced the arrests and inidctments of FEMA appointees in Puerto Rico who are enriching themselves by throwing contracts to pocket liners.
Trump has never imposed limits upon himself. He only stops when stopped.
That Nancy Pelosi is doing a Mitch McConnell imitation and refusing to open televised impeachment hearings, makes me despair.
I not only worry about Trump when he's out of office, but Kushner and his assassination best buds. I worry about Ivanka and her trademarks all around the world in areas where the Trump Org is established or is seeking a presence.
I've been filling my dance card to overflowing with the future graves of the corrupt I want to dance on. And I fear for America's future. We are living in exceedingly dangerous and possibly apocalyptic times.
8
Ooooops. Turns out you and CNN were wrong. The outing of our asset happened under Obama‘s watch
4
Explain your calendar. Or you logic.
Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. Trump met with Lavrov and Kislyak in May 2017. The CIA contact was exfiltrated later in 2017.
11
Care to explain how you have reached that conclusion?
8
@Replies
Initial attempt to remove asset came before Trump took office. Did not happen only because asset initially refused. He agreed on 2nd attempt from CIA.
2
Trouble is Trump doubles down on his invented reality living only in his unhinged mind; and his sycophants in the White House constantly belittle his antics out of sheer terror just to keep their jobs.
4
"[Trump] discloses American intelligence to deflect attention from unflattering stories, suck up to people he wants to impress, or simply on a whim." Indeed. "President Donald Trump has privately and repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of foreign intelligence from covert sources ... Trump has privately said that foreign spies can ... undermine his personal relationships with their leaders ... according to multiple senior officials who served under Trump." (CNN, 10Sept2019) You might ask "whose side is he on?" The answer is the side of dictatorial strong men, to which club he aspires. Mr. Trump is being played by Mr. Putin, Kim Jong Un, Mr. Duterte, etc.
5
"He discloses American intelligence to deflect attention from unflattering stories, suck up to people he wants to impress, or simply on a whim. He treats it, as he treats everything else in American government, as a private tool of self-gratification."
Of course: Trump has narcissistic personality disorder. This fact, along with almost total ignorance of everything worth knowing, explains his behavior. He cannot comprehend the idea of banding together with others for the common good. There is no common good. There is only his good.
8
Preach.
3
President Trump's embrace of various Russian officials, his chatting about serious matters of state, and his actual passing along the business of American intelligence matters, makes him a kind of traitor to many. But according to Section 110 of Article III, Section 3 of the United States constitution, "treason is specifically limited to levying war against the US or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort". That's why Congressional Democrats have their hands tied in this matter.
On the other hand, the moral sin of treason--the betrayal of trust or treachery, is another story. An ASU "knowledge enterprise, known as Zócalo", states: 'the moral sin of treason . . .is a different story. And for that, Dante's "Inferno" is a useful guide. In Dante's imagined descent through hell, he reserved the Ninth Circle--the lowest, blackest and farthest from Heaven--for the sin of treachery.
Trump needs to be held to account for his inability to keep his mouth shut. He has endangered good people, and has crashed efforts to make peace in troubled spots in the world.
6
One more consequence of “electing” a President who can’t shut up.
7
“extracted"...….does that mean we got this guy out due to our concerns or the said "get me out of here!
1
@EDDIE CAMERON: Read the CNN and Times articles.
Some People just don’t seem to understand that Trump has been sent to make America grate again.
That means conventional methods are irrelevant in this new age.
All his 60,000,000 voters want is to see is Trump applying his superior knowledge, intelligence and personal negotiating skills, and have the success confirmed on Twitter.
Better than a million spys.
3
Donald Trump is a traitor, as defined by the US constitution. By blowing this spy’s cover, he revealed classified information to our enemy, Russia. He aided Russia at the expense of our national security. While it may be true that a president can declassify classified info, there is a process he must follow before that info can be declassified. Trump did not follow that process. Thus, he broke the law. When he blurted out that classified info to Lavrov, that info was then still classified.
8
One more item to add to articles of impeachment. Trump is a menace to national security in addition to corrupting the missions of a number of Federal agencies and using his position to advertise his personal business. We should not forget his shameless cries of Crooked Hillary and her e-mails, the high point of hypocrisy and media complicity.
3
Trump is degrading American intelligence. Period. His effect on ‘intelligence gathering’ is the least of our worries. ‘Believe me!’
6
I only read half this article. We always quickly get to the same place. Trump’s total violation of his oath, “Preserve, protect and defend” should have triggered impeachment. The fact that we never seem to get there tells me a HUGE catastrophe has to impact us due to Trump’s stupid and immoral actions before America wakes up. It’s only a matter of time.
6
Trump is an enemy of the America we love and for which millions have risked their lives. To Trump, all is only for his aggrandizement. Republicans! Are you still Americans?!
7
It only took the New York Times 2 1/2 years to figure out the Donald Trump’s unpredictability and dishonesty poses a serious threat and danger to the security of the United States(!!)
Better late than never…
3
Loose lips sink ships, and sometimes it feels like the SS USA is taking on water...
6
Donald Trumps security clearance must be revoked immediately
10
Trump is not deliberated trying to hurt U.S.. He just isn’t interested in governing. By absentminded disclosing Vital information, he only wanted people to be impressed by his knowledge. It is like the kids were bragging “ see, I am smart than you. I know this that you do not know”.
5
Reading this column after reading Mr. Gerstell’s column is simply terrifying.
2
What they thought Trump would do is the definition of a traitor.
5
At some point it seems what this bumbling oaf does as pres would simply be illegal, as it would if he drove drunk or assaulted someone. I mean, citizens arrest illegal. Call the cops illegal.
4
"Psst! Don't tell trump"
Do you think trump REALLY cares that his policies are underlining the American intelligence capabilities?
He only cares about undoing all of Obama's policies and he cares about being as cruel and sadistic as he can be.
Basically trump only cares about his weak ego.
6
A compulsive Commander-in-Chief with no filter, who prioritizes instant gratification over the security of his troops and security
3
"I have a national security secret! Want to hear it?"
3
What part of:
"I, ......, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;.....
does Congress not understand?
Please, can we please, get rid of this man!
5
another story confirming that DJT will never learn that "words matter" . He should just shut up.
4
Loose lips sink ships. The president might just take down an entire country.
4
As WAPO has stated and NYT evidenced each and every day, "The greatest threat facing the United States is its own President"
5
@Dr. Pangloss
Do you mean that, "all is NOT for the best in this best of all states?"
Oh, my!
OK. Having a President that cannot be trusted to keep secrets from our enemies due to a toxic mix of ego, ignorance and an affinity for dictators, is definitely a crisis.
By why let a crisis go to waste?
Perhaps our intelligence agencies can "turn" our enemies' unwitting useful idiot in the Oval Office into an unwitting useful idiot for our side by feeding Trump misinformation he will likely pass on.
Do it often enough, and our enemies won't be able to believe anything Trump says.
Just like Americans.
6
After reading this and considering the often repeated claim that if the economy is good then Trump will likely be re-elected; then, I feel if that is the case (he is re-elected based on a strong economy and nothing else) then we deserve this idiot in office.
1
How about we just try trump for treason and remove him from office immediately so no more damage is possible.
5
"Tom Barrack.. with close ties to both Mr. Trump and the Gulf rulers, set out during the campaign to introduce Mr. Kushner to his associates as a useful ally.
“You will love him and he agrees with our agenda!” Mr. Barrack wrote in May 2016 in an email to the Emirati ambassador in Washington.."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/world/middleeast/saudi-mbs-jared-kushner.amp.html
"(August 2018), an economic miracle occurred. Eleven years after a young Jared Kushner purchased an aging skyscraper that would become an albatross around his family’s neck, and six months before the Kushners would have to cough up the $1.4 billion that was due on the mortgage for 666 Fifth Avenue, a Canadian asset-management company swooped in and agreed to take a 99-year lease.. Qatar Investment Authority being a major investor in the company, Brookfield Asset Management, and Kushner’s support of a Saudi- and U.A.E.-led blockade of Qatar. To some, it sure sounded like a foreign government was trying to influence policy by greasing the president’s son-in-law’s wheels!"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/qatar-666-5th-ave-jared-kushner/amp
Barrack props up 666 5th Ave with loan. Barrack speaks before 2016 Republican Convention espousing Trump's great family. Kushner the Elder fails at Qatar loan. Kushner visits MBS alone. MBS & UAE blockade Qatar. Brookfield agrees to pay 99-yr lease upfront around the time blockade ends. Moscow Mitch again silent.
5
As far as what's going on "Mr. Jones", the real powers that be are trying to preserve the office of the presidency, not the man, but the office - one of the three legs which hold up the entire government. And if it falls so will the rest of the country. There are real patriots behind the curtain. Sleep well. This idiot will not be the last chapter of American History.
1
Why is this okay? Why does Mitch McConnell have such divine power to hold us as royal subjects under his King?
4
This is EXACTLY what Putin and his chums are paying the Trump "dynasty" to do.
4
Can MG write any opinion about any topic beside Trump? Boring...
Everything trump touches dies.
6
We have had this, cannot be verified, anonymous sources, Russia related reporting for two years. Every single thing was a lie. Maybe made up by journalists in resistance, maybe by the Operation Hurricane members, maybe by political operatives. Maybe there is a Deep State, maybe not.
And here we go again. What is the poor reader make of it? Maybe there was an extraction or maybe not, maybe the reason was knowing FSB is closing, maybe the guy wanted out, maybe FSB has a mole here, maybe this or that.
We know Obama WH operatives betrayed that poor Pakistani doctor who helped to nail Bin Laden, boasted about cameras lost in Afghan hills by patrols being spying device but that was rational PR not irrational babbling. The Doctor is in prison, Taliban got rid of the cameras, at least the stories were true.
It's not like this is entirely "unpresidented" in American history.
It's no accident Trump will be replacing Benjamin Franklin with Benedict Arnold on the $100 bill:
https://silverberg-on-meltdown-economics.blogspot.com/2018/07/trump-to-pardon-benedict-arnold-on-eve.html
3
Only 16 more months of this buffoon and his corrupt administration. A new American President will help to restore international trust in the USA. Hang in there America!
4
When this guy is out of office and needs money, or wants to impress his friends, pals like Putin — how on God’s earth do we muzzle this MASSIVE security risk? He’d sell one of his kids if it meant a new building.
4
Let's stop beating around the bush. The man is poison.
6
More crazy unproven accusations against Trump.
The CIA and the FBI has shown their true colors when they made unproven Russian conspiracy theories against Trump. Actually it has been disproven since.
The NYT and CNN still has not apologized about their spreading those lies. Those lies didn’t work, so they are trying something new again
We all know what a buffoon Trump is. The real story is how little Republicans care about their country. There is apparently no bottom to their cowardice and contempt.
3
We may have lost our asset in the Kremlin, but Putin still has his asset in White House.
9
About the only "state secret" he can be trusted with is the secret ingredient in KFC.
2
Shocking. We always read about some smart, decent, hard working guy suddenly having a mental breakdown and gone rogue. That’s the US. Why and how did this transformation took place will be material for books and movies.
People who were pariahs few years ago and considered crackpots are now in charge, thanks to Putin, and what gives Putin the greatest satisfaction is that we are paralyzed and unable to do anything about this in spite of knowing what happened. How pathetic.
2
When can we expect the Russians to extract their “highly placed” agent from the White House?
3
It would be really nice some day if a NYT opinion columnist could write about something other than Donald J Trump.
This is TDS in the worst way possible and to debase oneself to sell cheap subscriptions should be beneath the dignity of a serious journalist.
1
As you can see in the Netflix serial "The Spy" the israelians had an agent in Syria who became Minister of Defence in 1963 - in Syria!. Well done!
But the russians have done even better. Their agent is now president of the USA! God bless America. :(
3
Many thanks to Ms. Golderg for nailing Trump's "logorrhea". For the benefit of those who (like me) could barely remember the spelling while googling its definition, it means excessive, uncontrollable, non-stop talking.
More simply, and more to the point, "oral diarrhea".
3
Who would share?
1
Last night, I watched a documentary on the early roots of Nazi Germany. In that time, military and domestic police units were increased and brought under Hitler’s control. Trump seems to be trying to do a similar thing, subverting what we’ve got so that whatever might be left is all his.
The only antidote I see in getting rid of him is by electing Bernie Sanders. Trump ran as a fake Sanders. Bernie is the real deal.
2
Hold on to your headlines Media, just wait until “individual one” orders Barr to stop the elections in 2020.
4
About "directly endangered", the end of the quote is: "media scrutiny of the agency’s sources alone was the impetus for the extraction."
1
Compare Trump with Pres. Eisenhower, who was attacked about phony missile gaps and bomber gaps, but withheld classified intelligence, including photos from the secret U2 spy plane, that would have proved the USSR's inferior military position. Ike's restraint even contributed to Nicon's loss in 1960, when JFK demagogued the alleged missile gap.
I know I have a small mind, however I dont understand what is stopping us from showcasing the sins of the Trump administration in a loop playing on TV. Now Bolton has been fired, yesterday the Taliban were going to come to Camp David, the day before where Pence and his family were staying. the tax cuts for corporations were going to bring so many jobs back to the states, still waiting, medical care that would be so wonderful, still waiting,
One endless loop with Trump allowing kids to be put in cages, deported to certain death and the Bahamas have very bad people.
This draft dodger should of been gone a very long time ago.
3
How can this piece still be up?
The CNN story upon which is based has been debunked. We all now know that it was in 2016, under Obama, that the CIA first tried to extract the spy but that the spy at first refused.
It was leaks from the Obama Administration that led to the MSM printing stories in 2016 which aroused the CIA's concern for the spy's safety.
I'll only add that the MSM is now providing information on the spy, living in the US, that not only endangers him but our National Security. Putin is not known for being forgiving of defectors.
1
Trump keeps demonstrating his desire to please Putin at all costs from siding with Putin over his won intel agencies to holding up aid to Ukraine until they go after Biden. Trump wants to shut down the free press and only wants sycophants like Hannity to be the official state media. Trump uses the Justice dept and Military to go after his political opponents and demands they sing his praises while he installs right wing judges he thinks he owns and may. American people if lazy can lose their democracy to becoming Trumplandia with the Trumps a royal family looting away .
2
Not surprising that a classified fool is giving classified information to our adversaries.
You can’t do much with a man who doesn’t know and even doesn’t know that he doesn’t know.
3
Are you sure Trump himself didn’t order this removal to help Putin?
2
Trump started spilling the beans before he was sworn in.
Remember his photo op with then President Obama? Remember his reference to "high flying assets?"
This man cannot keep his trap shut! If low level cleared personnel made such a public comment about black programs, they would be fired.
3
To restore the trust of other countries and their intelligence services, Trump supporters will have to stop supporting him, apologize to everybody else for what their support of this incompetent nutcase has put them through, and show that their ability to spot. incompetence and nuttiness has improved. Since one of the things his supporters admire about him is that he never admits mistakes or errors, admitting and fixing their horrible judgment ability is not on the table.
Real men like Trump or Dick Cheney do not learn from their mistakes because they do not make mistakes in the first place. They just move on to the next achievement, and everyone expect them to put the past behind them rather than wallowing in it.
1
trump seems to be evil. He certainly is stupid. The one who is stupid is the one who certainly -- by definition! -- doesn't recognize or sense his own stupidity (and none other's but that of some of the more -- and, perhaps, many of the most -- 'exceptionally' stupid).
4
We live in a country where half of the population, or nearly that, thought an ignorant, childish, megalomaniacal, reality-TV star should be president. There is a way in which the center Right and far Left overlap in their accounts of Trump's rise: that he was a protest candidate, used by voters to show their disdain for the system; that at least he wasn't Hillary Clinton, who was a purely political, amoral figure; that flyover country's put-upon laborers were sick of being shafted by coastal elites; etc.
Did you ever read "Manufacturing Consent"? A specious screed, but even granting its premise, today it'd be no longer applicable. Instead, everyone is free to find their own truth. In the Age of the Internet, whatever you want to be true, is. ... But don't we need to share some premises about the world, some fictions about the world? Trumpian figures are popping up where the above explanations don't hold. It can't be economics, failed establishments, foreign wars in ALL these cases.
The only commonality I see is the Internet's rise to information dominance. I don't know what the future of free societies, of representative democracies, looks like, but right now I'm not optimistic. Though I find populism loathsome, I don't quite see how to stop demagoguery. In any case, you're right that election night 2016 changed America and the world. We've walked up to the cliff's edge before. But this time, we jumped. Predictable consequences have followed, and they're far from over.
6
Trump would better understand the importance of intelligence if only he had even a modicum of it.
Unfortunately...
5
Most of us have known all along that Trump has no boundaries of any kind and no loyalties other than to his own ego. Clearly that is not going to change.
So the real question is whether those who still defend him will continue to do so and let our nation sink into weakness and self-destruction, or finally see even the tiniest bit of truth and realize we have to stop the madness and save our democracy from ruin.
7
It is the 62 million US citizens who voted for him who have left the "country compromised." Trump did not become president by coup. He was not even the first president to win by losing the popular vote. His ascendance is on the people who voted for him and on the constitution of the US.
5
And left unmentioned in Ms. Goldberg's essay about presidential trustworthiness is the question about what President Trump discussed with Mr. Putin in private. Was any national secret shared that we don't know about?
I appreciate your reports and wonder if we the readers (I know I would) would benefit from a civics lesson on the Presidential Records Act, which on its face mandates a record of presidential actions be kept. The law was passed after the Watergate impeachment.
Obviously, when Trump meets in private with Mr.Putin in his capacity as the president, a record should be made. Perhaps though, in the president's mind, he was not conducting national business, but personal business, so a record was not in order, he might think.
Furthermore, are Jared and Ivanka, as employees of the presidency, if you will, subject to Presidential Records Act rules?
Finally, which House of Representative committee would provide oversight of presidential compliance with the law?
Just wondering.
9
Still not convinced that Trump is a Russian asset? Even is he is not officially an asset to Russia, he is still a Russian asset. They couldn't have had a better pick.
15
... And don't tell any presidential appointees. Or their direct reports ...
Is this any way to run a railroad?
3
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but Trump was already absolutely corrupted when he first came to power, and he has been trying for absolute power ever since.
12
Sunny side! Your comment exactly right.
The Congress has a constitutional duty to uphold their oath of office and hold The Criminal Con Man in Chief accountable. Democrats and Republicans must understand country comes before party and this is not about politics but our democratic system of checks and balances.
We made a mistake with this lunatic and must save our democracy for our children and grand children .
Please contact your members of Congress and request our laws and constitution be followed and that they proceed with impeachment and conviction.
6
This is the result of voting for a reality TV personality who thinks only in terms of rains, buzz, and personal attention. He uses everything and anything to get attention without caring for anything other than his big "reveal". Add in his obvious and worsening dementia and he likely doesn't even understand the implications of his actions before he does them. Since he's purged everyone from his admin who are willing to tell him the ugly truth, he only learns about what will happen when you casually reveal to secret info after the fact from the media he voraciously consumes. So he continues to spill national secrets every time he wants to look cool to a dictator or create a distraction, because the gratification is immediate and the impacts are a few steps removed from him personally.
4
@Alex
'Look cool to a dictator!'
you hit the nail right on the head.
3
The Apprentice was a nasty and ludicrous show. Donald Trump would insist that the contestants call him Mr. Trump while calling them by their first name. People would be fired every week. But to be fired on the show was not like being fired in real life. You had world wide exposure. This very likely led to some real life opportunities. And if not you still were kind of famous. Or if you were already famous it could be springboard to a comeback. In any case even if you felt pain in being defeated and even humiliated by the condescension it was still largely make believe.
In the real world it is possible Trump thinks of himself as tough but basically warm. Likes to push people around bt at the end of the day he wants to be deferred to make sure people feel lesser than him but also grateful for his kindness and generosity. He might genuinely be clueless that a world exists outside his head. But then again he might be as bad as he appears to be.
That being said why all this worry about intelligence services. They have a sordid history of murder, assassinations, torture, destabilizing governments, disinformation etc, etc. and continuously engage in immoral and criminal activity.
Obviously Trump is no Chelsea Manning. But because he is a hideous thug doesn't make the "intelligence" agencies any more benign.
3
Seems like Trump's loose lips ought to be another article of impeachment as the Trump lips have obviously comprised the US intelligence community's work and hence our safety.
7
This is extremely dangerous, both for the left who loves America for its truthful original and meaningful values, and for the right, who has snuggled up to Putin's style for the sake of power and control ..... the right who loves to wrap itself in the American flag and the Constitution while at the same time, destroying it.
4
Erratic, childish, egomaniacal and dishonest: We have a very bad President.
The government is set up to minimize the damage that the President can do.
That leaves us with two simple questions that require straightforward answers.
Why isn't the GOP standing up to him? What's wrong with Mitch McConnell?
7
How about a psychological evaluation before anyone can take the oath of office. Had this been done with trump he wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the White House, much less sit in the Oval Office.
Remember the old TV show, "I've Got a Secret"? trump had plenty of secrets that he couldn't keep to himself and blabbed them to the Russians, like a child in the schoolyard. He has a strange idea of who should be his BFFs.
5
I’m not sure what’s really gained by reporting about a Russian CIA informant. Those of us who are not fed on a steady diet of memes and Fox News and fanatical talk radio know it was Putin who was behind the interference in the 2016 elections. Does the media really need this scoop?
"The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. He’s left the whole country compromised."
This is a reality Americans seem to be largely unaware of. As the world's lone superpower, America looms large around the globe. The U.S. president wields enormous power internationally. The truth is, the Trump base of poorly educated, fearful White voters have destabilized the entire world by backing an ignorant, bumbling narcissist for president. It's a bizarre situation to be living outside the U.S. and have your fate partly in the hands of the flag-wearing fanatics packing Trump's grotesque rallies.
10
@Rob
He is endangering the entire world. Joy
2
I keep hoping that the intelligence community will intervene. Or that a deep state really existed that could end this presidency which has done so much damage in the last few years.
It is (almost) inconceivable that in the face of such glaring incompetence and lack of discretion, that he is allowed to continue, and that we are seeing concentration camps at our borders inflicting immeasurable harm on babies and young children. The repercussions of this inhumanity won't be fully evident for a decade or more, but we are probably nurturing the next generation of terrorists by out own inhumanity
and all this in the face of the melting Greenland glaciers, and massive fires on 4 continents.
This then is how the world ends.. not by a bang.. but a whimper
7
Trump’s behavior redefines treason so that while popular media talks about a dynasty legal eagles from coast to coast await his failure at reelection to indict him, his family and his cronies for crimes that will be adjudicated as long as Deadbeat Don can breathe. He can run his kingdom from Leavenworth. How many patriots have to die in the meantime is anyone’s guess, but much lies in the hands of McConnell, that rotten apple.
5
“logorrhea“ an accurate description of the current US president’s manner of speech.
4
My wife is reading Ms. Goldberg's column just as I am finishing it. "It's sickening," she exclaims from another room, "just sickening!" I can't think of a better way to put it.
7
“Even the possibility that Trump jeopardized America’s most important intelligence asset in Russia should be a very big deal, though I’m not sure it will be.”
Not sure? understatement! impeach crazy, before crazy impeaches you!
4
the US' intelligence gathering deserves to be degraded.
1
So what's a country to do when a populist fabulator takes over and leads the country down a path of destruction and tries to obstruct and ignore elected representatives??
Answer: Members of the fabulators party cross the aisle and join the opposition in making laws preventing the destruction and vote further to keep the fabulator in check.
Hail Brittania, whose Parliament did just that.
Meanwhile, in a land far far away, the craven republican cowards in Congress cave to the stable genius and let the destruction carry on.
Congress, you know what you need to do.
Do it.
5
Of course Trump can't be trusted. He has been a Russian asset since before the 2016 election, and he obviously continues to be. From his insistence on changing the Republican platform vis-a-vis Russia, scrapping decades-long policies, to his disgraceful kowtowing to Putin in Helsinki - it is clear that Trump is compromised.
Our intelligence community knows this, the international community knows this, and we know this.
Trump voters are the only ones who persist in their willful ignorance of what is plainly before us all. They know this is true, deep down, but they would rather have a "president" whom Putin clearly owns, as long as he tells them that as white Christians, they're the favored Americans, and the rest of us must accept the scraps of second-class citizenship.
And for this, Trump voters are happy to trade away our democracy, our international prestige, and our independence as a sovereign nation. None of these things means anything to them, as long as Trump continues to tell them that neo-Nazis and the KKK are some very fine people.
But understand this - the longer we continue to kowtow to Trump's voters, the longer we continue to appease them, the longer we will be stuck with Trump, thanks to his puppeteer Putin. The only way we may begin to extricate ourselves from the Kremlin's grip is to overcome Trump voters, and overcome them by a majority of such size that they understand they may not ever again trade away our country so easily.
7
Trump doesn't blurt out details of his tax returns, or his conflicts of interest in maintaining oversight to his money making activities, he doesn't 'forget' and tell us who he calls from the many golf courses. He blurted out nothing about unprotected sex with porn star until it was wrenched from him. he didn't blurt out details of what he an Putin discussed when they were holed up with only two interpreters.
So it would appear to be 'selective blurting out.' to a rather small audience Russia and Saudi Arabia. I'd say that was treason.
7
Well if Trump's loose lips sink ships, it's time mothball the entire Navy.
5
An ordinary citizen withTrump's loose lips would find themselves charged with treason and facing decades in prison.
8
Who can forget the images of Kim jung un and Trump, at their well televised summit, when trump sauntered over to his vehicle, “The Beast” and showed off the interior to his buddy the North Korean despot. Trump was reported to have said, “he wrote me beautiful letters and we fell in love.”
3
And wen he leaves office he will crave attention and what is to keep him from revealing more classified information via Tweet after Tweet? Because it is all about him baby.
3
“A president who can’t be trusted is degrading” everything he touches.
8
Maybe using the word “Intelligence” is just wrong.
How quickly we forget about a Secretary of State who had classified Government information on a Private server in her basement ...that was wanted in a investgation ...and was Destroyed intentionally .....Pretty much makes Trump look like the most Trusted Goverment Offical this Nation could ask for!
1
Good idea to bring in the Russian asset before Trump tweets about it to the World...
6
@Paul Torcello Yes, it is rightly and highly believed that a life was saved! Worth it!
1
Ever since early in his tenure, when Trump betrayed Israeli intelligence secrets to the Russian Ambassador to the US, in the Oval Office, it has been clear that we have been in the unbelievable situation of having a Chief Executive who is himself an active security risk.
This treasonous behavior on its own should have resulted in Trump’s impeachment well before now.
Obviously every day that we fail to legally remove this malicious clown from office represents a renewed personal threat to every American intelligence officer and to our national security. What will it take for us to act?
7
If this guy isn't removed from office soon, I don't know how we can survive the next 15 months. Impeachment must take place and the Democrats must show that he is unfit for office, ripping off the United States, a security risk to not only the United States but all other democracies and a crook to the ninth degree. I would vote for anyone other than this guy. How did we get into this abyss?????? I try not to read or watch it somedays because it is so upsetting and worrisome to me that I am sure I am losing some years just living it.
6
In the meantime his supporters are buying more high powered weapons to protect themselves from the “terrorists” of the left their president is so worried about.
3
The inventory of Trump's deliberate or casual intelligence indiscretions is the most valuable part of this piece. We get so overwhelmed by the barrage of daily outrages, that it's hard to identify and realize the actual patterns. That's why we so very much need such good observers as Ms. Goldberg.
7
Remember all the fuss about Hillary Clinton using a private eMail server. There was no evidence that classified information was leaked. But she certainly was not following the rules.
And now we have this behavior. Repeated leaks of information. And complete silence from the Republicans in Congress.
14
Important editorial, I hope the "intelligentsia" is reading. There is a reason that the new HBO series "Years and Years" has a re-elected Trump as their apocalypse, as Michelle states, we can't undue the damage that is Trump and his electability. We did it America! This is generational damage we are talking about, in trust at home, and abroad. I hope at the very least, we can limit the apocalypse by showing the world that a majority of us are still sane and possessing of compassion. We need to route out the leak in 2020.
10
Trump contaminates everything and everyone he contacts. This reverse Midas touch spares nobody and nothing.
Clearly, if one is an allied foreign intelligence officer, the question as to whether to share important information with the U.S. is important and delicate. Trump, clearly, can't be trusted with anything. But it's more than that: considering the recent Hurricane Dorian episode with Wilbur Ross, the basic quandary is much deeper: can ANYONE in the American government be trusted with sensitive information?
Beyond that, an even deeper and more troubling question arises. Administrations change. Even if Trump is (as we all hope) ejected from office, eventually there will be a non-Democratic president. Then, given the embrace that the entire GOP has given Trump and their obvious lack of integrity and flouting of behavioral norms, can any intelligence that might wind up in the hands of a Republican administration ever be shared with Americans?
9
"The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. "
This is the most frightening aspect of this whole conversation. We as a country, and it's voters, have been shown to be a risk to our allies. We must turn this around and demand that our government put laws into place that show our willingness to never allow this to happen again. We have seen the enemy and the enemy is us.
The press must stop facilitating the lies and tell this country the truth. If we do not demand a return to integrity in our press, our government and our voting system, we will lose our freedom, the strength and protection that comes from strong relationships and allies and our safety on the world stage. VOTE
11
@JDH
The mainstream press has always taken the point of researching the things the POTUS says and finding the truth. Many times that report ha been discredited by folk who don't take the time to do the basic research but scream Fake News.
I agree that the press needs to be held to a high standard but we also need our leaders need to conform to a higher standard than the press should be held to.
I had hoped that the current Administration and POTUS would be at the least responsible to adhering to such standards and behavior.
I find myself amazed at what is happening. Anything that is not in line with what the POTUS wants is fake or part of those who are trying make him a victim of huge conspiracies geared to hurt him.
What happened to our ability to speak our minds?
This is truly frightening as it smacks of do what I tell you not what you believe is right.
I am almost 70 years old and I worry for my country.
Just an old white man's opinion.
2
Once Colin Powell presented a false casus belli to the UN and once Cheney/Bush et alia got off scot free despite their unprovoked unjust wars, the world's estimation of US intelligence and morality was irreparably damaged. Then Obama tripled our forces in Afghanistan with no exit plan. Now Trump blithers and preens.
We are supposed to learn from our mistakes but our political class has repeatedly failed to do so.
We need big changes and we need them soon. Impeach Trump. Prosecute the Bush warmongers. Admit that Obama got us deeper into the Afghan quagmire. Refrain from foreign entanglements and rein in military spending.
7
We already knew before the extrication of this asset that trump is a security threat to us and our allies in the free world.
What we don’t know and what the Mueller probe was unable to establish is whether our POTUS conspired with and is controlled by our Russian adversary. This existential question may find an answer in this asset. I know, I know: to pose the question is itself frightening and unprecedented. Recall that Clinton accused trump of being Putin’s “puppet” in the presidential debates and trump’s puerile response was utterly lacking credibility and substance.
It’s difficult to ask a more terrifying question. My goodness, should the answer be in the affirmative, we’re talking about treasonous behavior-not legally by definition-but clearly impeachable if established.
13
Maybe Trump shouldn't be trusted with intelligence reports anymore. He doesn't read most of them anyway, so he can just be given very sketchy updates, without national security details, to make sure he doesn't out any of our assets, either by mistake, desire to show off, or to please Putin, the apparent puppeteer.
133
@NoTeaPlease
"sketchy updates" That's it! Cartoons. CG animation. Zoom. Zoom. Lots of action, lots of pictures of 45 and homilies to him. But no names or countries; or just make some up.
14
"A president who can’t be trusted is degrading American intelligence gathering."
Trump is the nation's greatest national security risk. To Trump our national security is "a private tool of self-gratification." With good reason the CIA doesn't trust him. With good reason our allies no longer trust us. What wouldn't Trump do, to avoid indictment once he is voted out of office? What wouldn't he do, for money? Mueller's overwhelming body of evidence stands, whether or not he was able to prove the narrow charge of criminal conspiracy. Trump and his family and his protectors and his party are all a national security risk. McConnell and Ryan couldn't care less about democracy or national security or the sabotage of our elections or even treason. Trump has given Barr, who is acting as his private attorney, the right to declassify anything.
7
The New York Times has leaked more classified information to our enemies than Trump is said to have done in this article. The most profound difference is that Trump is authorized by law to declassify and release information. The NYT is not, but they publish classified information anyway, as if they are entitled to do so, regardless of the damage it causes.
3
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
"The New York Times has leaked more classified information to our enemies than Trump is said to have done in this article."
Proof, please. And from a reputable source; Infowars, Washington Examiner, Breitbart, Fox News don't qualify.
3
@eheck
OK, Let's see if the NYT censors will post the proof.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol47no1/article04.html
Michelle Goldberg can save herself a lot of anxiety if she could apply what political annalist, Selina Zito explained in how to understand Trump. Don't take him literally. Take him seriously. But Goldberg would rather be in a state of constant hysteria over Trump. There are some perks to clinging to her outrage.
First, this angle produces a lot of material for her columns. Secondly, this angst fuels a point of view that her audience desperately wants. But at some point, she ought to consider the toll of taking Trump literally is having on her mental health. There is treatment available for those affected by Trump Derangement Syndrome.
4
The treatment for the made up So called Trump Derangement Syndrome is to Vote Him Out.
7
We had an agent high in the Kremlin. Russia has one in the White House.
15
So much horrible stuff happening all the time. You just can't keep up with it. What ever happened to those sick children who were going to be thrown out of the country? What about all the kids still in cages? We haven't heard about them for at least a week because of all the new horrible stuff that's happening.
VOTE HIM OUT!!!
9
Silence is better for the wise, more so for the fool. We have a president who is a fool whose one gift is the ability to convince other fools that he is wise.
We need more wise people....to vote.
7
Ms. Goldberg the information in your column is utterly terrifying in its scope.
On top of it all we have a major political party either overwhelmingly bamboozled by their leader or willingly allowing this person to lead this nation into the abyss with his antics and stupidity.
I tend to go with “antics and stupidity” idea. On top of it all there are the base knuckleheads supporting him ! Sir Alfred Hitchcock would be aghast.
5
I am not sure if Trump is "the Manchurian candidate" or just a "useful idiot." But it really doesn't matter. The end result is the same - extreme peril for America.
14
every day, Trump demonstrates that he
can not be allowed a second term.he is
not only a danger to America but to the
entire western world.Vlad Putin clearly
regards him as a useful idiot or worse,
an asset of the Russian government.
I am hoping against hope that the
Democratic party will not devour
itself and give him a second term.
10
Your article is old hat, Ms. Goldberg. Trump is “degrading” our country’s systems? Yawn. Tell us something we do NOT know for a change!
3
@ManhattanWilliam
There is nothing “yawn” about Trump damaging and degrading democracy and the intelligence gathering capabilities of the US. Screen it from the mountaintops every single day.
5
Trump conspired with Putie and would have revealed the spy’s identity if he knew it. Sounds like spy dude has dodged the not so proverbial bullet.
6
We pulled a valuable Spy because the IC does not
trust Trump
this is scary and par for the course for this
current occupant of the White House
8
Trump is pure id and cannot stop running his mouth. It will probably continue after he leaves office
4
@Buoy Duncan - You're no doubt right. All the more reason to Impeach and convict. He should have been removed from office long ago. But for the protection afforded by sycophant Republicans in Government, particularly those in leadership positions led by McConnell and Barr. It's hard for me, and I expect many others, to understand the motivation for this. Money alone does not explain why anyone would violate the Constitution in this manner. Power?
3
For a variety of valid reasons, Donald Trump would be unable to pass the security screening necessary to work as a groundskeeper at the CIA campus in Langley.
Think about that one for a moment.
12
There simply is no way this guy, nor any member of his lost flock family, should have a security clearance. He's not only a fool, he's a fool who believes he's a genius - which is the worst kind of fool.
11
This is sedition, a serious serious crime!
8
Yes, that last point -- that America could put someone like Trump in office -- is the most damaging.
Someone like Trump who cavalierly undoes international treaties, withdraws from trade and nuclear agreements, and routinely adheres to the wrong side in the global contest of political hegemony.
7
Trump kills people with his loose lips, it’s as simple as that.
8
Mr. Trump seems to provide intelligence mostly to despots, who are his natural peers and playmates. Intelligence is a national asset that he and they can use in barter transactions to increase their personal wealth and power.
He does seem loath to engage in personal spying on those people, perhaps in some perverse notion of honor among autocrats. It seems unlikely that any of them would reciprocate his courtesy in that area.
6
Word of the day: "logorrhea"!
Look it up!
5
What is truly frightening to us in the rest of the world is not that you have a president who is, by any standard you want to apply, demonstrably unfit for office, your constitution makes it almost impossible to remove him. So we, who've had no hand in electing him have so sit like ducks, awaiting our fate that hangs by a thread.
Did the founding fathers really believe their exaltation of the office would lift all those who attained it? If so, what hubris. This is a dangerous Achilles heel in your system that has the potential to take us all down and its amazing it hasn't done so before.
The man who currently runs roughshod through the hallowed halls does so completely at his whim. There seems to be nothing that can really stop him. Every day brings a fresh outrage. It seems he gets bored when there isn't one, and has to create one out of the ether, caring not one whit he is destroying whole agencies with the stoke of a pen.
And yet, he has managed, like all the crazy despots and monarchs before him, to use the power invested in him to shield himself from the consequences of his actions. His sycophants will turn on him only when his fall from grace is imminent. It's positively Medieval and not befitting a modern nation. The mad king not only needs to be deposed, but the system that crowned him needs to be abolished.
In the meantime, forgive us if we circle our wagons and leave you to it. We simply cannot afford to trust you until you fix this.
7
I know it sounds like I live in tin foil underwear......
Did he purposely try to out the agent who gave intel on Putin's interference as an act of revenge?
1
It is not known but our intelligence community is not taking any chances on this asset’s life.
2
That Trump is a Putin asset is no longer in doubt. His record of covert ties to Russian government agents would if it were that of any other employee of the Federal government rate him immediate dismissal and probable prosecution for violation of numerous laws and regulations regarding failure to report contact with agents of a hostile power.
Trump has not only "failed to report" he has actively lied and tried to hide his involvement in numerous schemes involving Russian government agents.
The motivation for his deceptions don't really matter because it is his desire to hide his connections that give the Russian government its hold over him. Russia has a long long record of always taking advantage of such a gift so it would be foolish to believe he's somehow free from Russian control and his record shows he is both a witting and unwitting tool of the Kremlin.
6
Lock him up.
8
Time to wake up! This trump person is more than likely a High Value Russian asset hidden in plain sight.
7
“We have a president who, unlike any other president in modern history, is willing to use sensitive, classified intelligence however he sees fit, … ” It is amazing how the US intelligence agencies allow any top secret cryptographic data regarding Russia be seen by anybody in the Trump administration. Every American kid understands that Trump and his sycophants are totally owned by Putin and his oligarchs.
Micheal Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates and Micheal Cohen - all convicted of felonies - worked closely for the Russians at Trump's direction.
Trump's good buddy Roger Stone is another outed Russian informer, using the Wikileaks connection directed by Vladimir.
Trump has had secret meetings and many one-on-one phone calls with Putin, while publicly stating that he sides with Putin over American intelligence agencies.
Knowing all this, why would any person in Putin's Russia risk their lives working with the CIA, knowing that the US President will deliver him/her to Putin and his FSB/KGB? They would be signing their death warrant.
Trump and his real estate empire - particularly the golf courses - are owned by Putin and his crowd - lock, stock and smoking barrel.
6
Ralph Kramden would regard Trump as a BLABBER MOUTH.
3
I believe Trump wants to break the Union, break up the country so its assets can be had dirt cheap by people with lots of cash, who could also take control of the remaining state and federal governments. Consider that the breakup of the Soviet Union was a wonderful opportunity for the gangsters and bandit leaders.
4
It is easy to imagine Trump giving up the guy's identity to curry favor with Putin.
10
Trump's need to publicize sensitive intelligence comes from his childlike need for self-aggrandizement. For these serial offenses, he should be treated like any other untrustworthy foreign actor and fed a diet of misinformation. For example, If the CIA and NSA tell Trump that the Taliban would really like to get in 18 holes at Doral, Trump would be waiting at the first tee.
3
President Trump is desperate. Since most of his outrageous acts of American foreign policy have been reversed, or walked back, he must resort to statements, that can’t be rescinded. Revealing National secrets to foreign powers can’t be reversed.
4
Yes, Ms. Goldberg; and if Vladimir Putin demanded of Donald Trump that America return this "asset" back to Russia, Trump would obey his master. After all, who else does he work for? The American people?
2
Anybody, anywhere who trust trump with a secret is a complete fool.
5
This brings to mind the possibility that if Trump is losing in the election process he might "threaten" to expose more top secret security "bits"
As far as having a top man in the Kremlin, the Russians have a top man in Washington, D.C. too. And, of course, you ALL know who that is . . . (Hint: he works in the Oval Office)
5
Trump is more farcical, and dangerous, than Dr. Strangelove.
4
Betraying the United States intelligence community is nothing new for the Republicans in office. Not only did George W. Bush pervert intelligence findings to justify and drum up support for his illegal and monumentally stupid invasion of Iraq; he and his administration deliberately "outed" intelligence asset Valerie Plame, even though doing so compromised intel sources undercover overseas and possibly cost some of them their lives.
It's worth noting that Republican presidents and other office-holders have been committing acts that can reasonably be described as "treasonous" going all the way back to Nixon. He deliberately interfered with LBJ's peace talks with North Vietnam; Reagan's campaign negotiated with the Iranians to hold our Embassy hostages until after the election and then traded arms for more hostages in what became known as "Iran/Contra", which also involved President G.H.W. Bush.
The Republican Party in my view long ago gave up its right to wave, or even salute, the Stars and Stripes.
7
By now it is pretty clear that we have a President who basically is nuts and should not be trusted with any important information or be permitted to make any important decisions. But cheer up. Throughout history there have been kings and queens who led their countries for years despite being mentally ill. Of course,unlike us, their citizens did not have the option of voting them out of office. If we re-elect a seriously disturbed individual as President, it is us who are nuts.
7
What a silly little country we have become. Many see Trump as the cause, hence the endless editorials on this page and others. That is really giving him too much credit. Trump doesn't like the map, so he orders it redrawn. I wonder how many Americans could correctly identify Alabama on the map?
Trump is merely as symptom of a nation that seeks simple answers to the problems of a complex world.
2
„... He’s left the whole country compromised.“
So true!
3
the fact the trump can't and won't be discreet is scary.
2
Its an open secret the US President is full of limitations. Some say it out load, others play along with Trumps delusions about being great, and kiss the ring as its the means to get close to him. His enemies will praise him because they see a dummy for the taking, while his staffers will praise him to stay inside the loop. GOP politicians will praise him because they don’t want to be primaried by a Trump supporter. Other world leaders will placate him, as despite being repulsed by him, he is still the POTUS. But they all agree on one thing – the POTUS is a fool. The only people who genuinely believe Trump is amazing, are some of his supporters, you can identify them by the genuine belief he is playing ‘4D chess’ or is a great businessman. I for one believe Kelly Anne Conway shares the same views as her husband, but she falls under the category of staffer wanting to stay in the loop, so she plays along. Whilst Putin & Kim are examples of enemies playing along with Trump delusions to extract. Everyone knows Trump is a lemon, the more ridiculous thing is the sheer amount of people pretending he isn’t.
3
This is the best article I've read on how badly Trump is hurting American interests zround the world.
3
Why was Jill Stein at Vladimir Putin's dinner table in Moscow with Michael Flynn in 2015?
Something very weird happened in 2016. And the so called "Green" Party candidate, that helped put Donald Trump over the line in at least Michigan and Wisconsin, was complicit.
4
do you know what happens to intelligence officials or other agency staff who withhold or lie about info to the president.
they get fired and lose there pensions like Jim Comey.
the president has highest authority as commander and chief.
1
As yet another extreme danger to national security posed by Trump is exposed, the silence of the Republican Party is extraordinary and damning.
6
The rise of Mr Trump and the Tea Party reflects the fact that only a small percentage of Americans have sufficient mental wherewithal or desire to grasp complex topics. They demand simple. First with Mr Reagan, then with the Bushes and now with Mr Trump, they got what they demanded: simpletons in Congress and in the White House. Business owners and workers alike prefer to believe myth over fact. We can all pray that perhaps facts will have reached these people who demand simple answers. It remains sad that our electorate seem challenged with being able to foresee what seems obvious to the rest of us.
Sad, but so true. Vote him out!!
2
Why all this beating around the bush ... call a spade a spade! And the spade is that trump is a Russian operative. The very people trump is hell bent on destroying know this. Helsinki revealed that trump is effectively a russian operative, and as such is liable of treason, plain and simple.
What we’re left with now is the precarious situation of an un-indicted criminal in the oval office scot-free to continue his campaign of wreaking havoc and chaos on the nation. What a pathetic and dangerous travesty of justice!
4
Why won't anyone just SAY IT.
Trump is compromised by Vladimir Putin.
5
He simply must be impeached. It’s come to the point where there are daily atrocities and we are increasingly in greater danger. Our country cannot survive any more of this scourge. Is there a way for regular citizens to help move impeachment forward? Millions of us feel the same way. This is urgent.
P.S. So very sorry, world. Most of us are as horrified as him as you are.
5
Don't forget that it was also the previous Republican administration - Cheney's office - that leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. The perpetrator, Scooter Libby, was pardoned by Trump.
3
Wow, with a president like that, who needs enemies?
2
Michelle fell for CNN's gambit just as they hoped she and others would. She ran with their story line and tossed around the blame on trump. Even her own papers story, which she cites, doesn't blame Trump as she and CNN do.
This is so sad.
13
@alan
The situation seems sad to you because you miss its essential core - a farce. Here we have all our leftists - some of them former communists - united in their proclaimed devotion to the US intelligence services, and anxious to protect them from the US president on grounds he is a Russian spy. The farce includes a full cast of European and ANZ allies, at least as represented by their own leftist press, with Germany's Der Spiegel similarly worrying today about intelligence leaking from the White House to the Kremlin.
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/usa-zogen-offenbar-top-spion-aus-russland-ab-a-1286002.html
Now the president has a phone number, Twitter account, email, makes daily appearances on TV shows, town-halls, press conferences, so the obvious question arises: if we really suspect him of leaking secrets uncontrollably, why not ASK him for details?
1
Let me guess. Obama’s fault? You know Obama isn’t President now, nor has he disclosed classified information as Trump has?
1
It seems as though you must not have read the story about which you’ve just commented. “Blame Trump”? Yes! The author cited numerous blatant and disturbing intelligence breaches perpetrated by exactly one man, and we know because the infractions were made on tape, in public. How can you NOT blame him?
1
But Trump has NOT forwarded a single highly classified email to a subordinate only authorized to receive classified email.
Hillary did that -- twice -- over 4 years out of more than 1,500,000 emails received.
Thank God, Trump has not had an error rate like that.
2
All this is very chilling and can further fuel our paranoid distrust of Trump. Distrust is more than warranted. However let's not overlook the parts played in this debacle by Trump's small intelligence and gargantuan appetite for attention.
347
@KO
To Trump the rest of the world is just a board game. Lets play for a few hours with the dice and the pieces and then we can go home, eat hamburgers and watch Fox News. Words to describe his frightening ineptness, disinterest, mental unfitness (madness? senility?) and self-absorption fail us now because the English vocabulary has given up. Paranoia? We can talk about how he has compromised our intelligence, but what I am increasingly worried about is that man who always follows our President* around. You know that guy, the one with the briefcase with all those codes. I just hope that guy is on our side if that time comes.
23
Indeed, Ms. Goldberg--that Trump was surprise-elected by enough legitimate votes tells the world that the wisdom of the American people themselves is suspect. (One could title this chapter in American history "Who Are We, Anyway?") If the rest of the intelligence world doesn't trust us with important information, well, who can blame them?
300
@JR80304. Trump was not elected by a majority or even a plurality of votes. He was elected by the electoral college, a body which the founding fathers set up to prevent a majority vote from taking effect if it was 'unsuitable '. Trump was not the people's choice.
67
@Bridey--And, Trump still isn't the people's choice, judging by his 55% (and climbing) disapproval.
52
@Bridey Many millions voted for him. Enough millions to shatter my faith in the democratic process.
24
Presidential reckless endangerment of intelligence services from the Trump administration is a national disgrace. Intelligence agents work behind the scenes to protect the security of the United States sometimes at considerable risk to themselves. Moreover, due to the nature of their work, they get no credit for what they do - they are men and women without faces. They know this, and still step up to the plate. That Donald Trump, his relatives, and his Senate compadres can frivolously expose them to endangerment is deeply troubling. I sincerely hope that the IC, for the sake of the country, limits and qualifies its information dissemination to this administration since it does not seem to understand, nay, damages, the essential purposes of their work.
230
The underlying problem is a POTUS incapable of understanding basic concepts of governance, foreign relations, geopolitics and intelligence gathering.
Instead of MAGA we got MRGA
Woe to all those who enabled in the past, present and future.
12
@honouria
The day trump was “elected” was probably not one of great joy in the intelligence community.
While many Americans are unaware of or ignore his trip to Soviet Moscow in 1987, paid for by the KGB, I do not think the implications of his infatuation with all things Russian thereafter would be overlooked or ignored by the intelligence community.
Nor would his unpredictable behavior or vengeful nature...
There has to be some level of filtration going on in what information he receives... something, even with the worst past presidents, I would never have hoped for.
I pray whatever nuclear codes he’s been given are someone’s old gym locker code or old lottery numbers and the “nuclear football” is just a briefcase full of dirty socks and tennis sneakers.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s tried to nuke France or Belgium a couple of times from Mar-a-lago, but his handlers keep telling him the batteries for the football are dead and it takes a few days to order new ones... long enough for him to forget and move on to other nonsense.
14
The US intelligence agencies should be very wary of sharing any sensitive data with anyone in the Trump administration. The data gleaned by the US Congress to date shows that the Trump family is heavily in debt to Putin and his oligarchs, and that Trump only allegiance is to himself. The narcissist Trump could care less about the United States or its citizens.
3
I view Trumps cozy Russia relationship and the security it risks the same way I view the Newtown tragedy; if this does not change minds, nothing will.
131
@Sydney Carton
Sadly your analysis is true. How much more evidence do uninformed, racist voters need to see before they see what a disaster President Trump is for all Americans. Moreover, the GOP Senators and Representatives act oblivious to this obvious destruction of our country. They are more responsible than the average Trump Voter. God help us.
2
Even if Trump himself doesn't realize it he is a Russian intelligence "asset". He may or may not have "colluded" with Putin to get Russian support for his 2016 election. But his attempt to remove the heads of so many intelligence gathering agencies beginning with Comey are certainly exactly what Putin wanted when they supported Trump against Hillary. Trump being a delusional psycho-pathological narcissist cannot accept tht others are smarter than him and know more than he does about the world he inhabits, but doesn't live in. What is most frightening is how much power he has over things he knows nothing about and aggressively tries to distort the narratives that disagree with his delusions. The psychopathology underlying the alteration of the Hurricane Dorian prediction says all any thinking person would want to know about Donald J. Trump and the adminstration he has appointed to control his fairy-tale world. Woe is America to have such people in charge.
4
I love that you used the word logorrhea. trump is logorrheic, which is a word I taught my fifth graders when they chatted too much. So, its true. trump is a fifth grader (or am I placing him in too high a grade?). At least my students weren't vulgar, like the mob in the White House.
2
Our intelligence agencies could not allow the POTUS to possibly alert the Russians to an asset embedded within their highest offices. My thanks to those who made this call, correctly, by all indications.
If this isn't an indictment of the GOP and it's membership, what would it take? Outright treason? A giveaway of, say, Alaska to Putin's family?
If this is "making America great," I'll eat every hat in this country.
1
In a nutshell
"The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. He’s left the whole country compromised."
2
I don't think his fondness for Putin is inexplicable. I think he is simply maximizing the money potential for his and his family's bank accounts. Russia is a market, his market, along with many others.
3
Ms. Goldberg's closing statement sums up the principal damage being caused by our President. Intelligence sources, as hard as they are to find and develop, can be and are always being made anew, but the fact that even the USA is capable of electing a golf republic dictator like Trump is a historical fact, and the inferences which follow, for democracy here and everywhere else, can never be undone.
3
Free Press endangering people is an outcome of being the only thing standing in the way between citizens and a Dictator; the Congress and Senate led by Russian supporter Mitch McConnell, who can’t see the connection between a non-interference with Trump and our new totalitarian regime where even the weather forecast is now unreliable, can’t seem to step in quickly enough to save us from the worst of ourselves multiplying like a self impregnating spreading virus.
Years ago, a Latvian woman told me; Yes, I worked on computers there, but we were told to falsify data. We spent hours and years doing that. Everyone knew. So no one believed anything anymore. She had become a US citizen to escape the lies.
1
The President of the United States is a national security threat. Full Stop. Every Republican in elected office is a national security threat because their deafening silence and refusal to act to protect us from the threat at the top allows it to continue.
6
Just when you think things can't get any worse, they do. What amazes me is that there are so many Trump supporters who do not understand that Trump's actions are all to benefit Trump. He doesn't hate America, he doesn't care one wit about it.
2
And so it goes as Trump scores another major victory for his handler, Putin. This administration represents a greater existential threat than Communism ever did throughout the Cold War era. Back in the fifties, our government executed the Rosenbergs for far less serious crimes. Yet all we do is wring our hands, whine and await the next tweet. Historians will be astounded at how easily our demise was perpetrated.
3
“One would like to think that America’s intelligence-sharing relationships can be repaired if Trump is voted out in 2020. But it’s not just the president that foreign spies can’t trust. The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. He’s left the whole country compromised.”
This sums up a lasting point of damage caused by Trump. If America was stupid enough to do this once, it could happen again. When you sow permanent distrust and uncertainty in your core group of allies, Putin is winning. His main goal is disunity in the west. That fracture puts the US, and the world, at much greater risk. Our world image has declined significantly and we may never get it back. If Trump is reelected in 2020, the idealized vision of the Founders is officially dead. The feeling will be like the title of Robert Heinlein’s book, “Stranger in a Strange Land”.
1
Don’t blame DJT - he suffers from anosognosia (“a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability”). The lay public may not have the expertise or knowledge to appreciate the gravity of his derelictions. The blame for bringing down the country lies entirely with the Republicans in Congress and in other positions of power. They are aware of the corrosion of our institutions, and have decided to be silent enablers since it serves their narrow and selfish interests.
2
One would think after the whole Russian collusion investigation was shown to be a fraud that the press would be more cautious in blaming Donald Trump for nefarious behavior without evidence.
One would be wrong.
1
So when is Trump going to be tried for Treason? How much are the Republicans willing to let go and stop defending Trump?
When a President of the United States willfully puts our Country in Danger and the rest of our Allies, how can any Republican support Trump? It took less information sharing by the Rosenbergs (and I still think there are questions about that) to send them both to the Electric Chair for Treason).
Trump has shown no loyalty to this country or its ideals, let alone our Intelligence Agencies. He needs to go
McConnell, show your Patriotism for once. And the GOP should be yelling an screaming about this. But I guess the everyday voter is not important enough to get rid of this more than corrupt President and its Administration.
2
Among the dangerous consequences of our intel apparatus having to disconnect from the president is that they (CIA, NSA, and military) can easily turn into a second government invisible to Congress. This is how the murderous rogue secret polices of the world originate and operate. Yes, I do understand that Congress already has very little oversight and knowledge, and that they are only managed to the extent that their bosses are political appointees. Once you have to disconnect the president and his cabinet from oversight, as we have today, the agencies become essentially autonomous. Can you spell SS?
1
" The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone."
Bingo.
The world will not trust America soon.
Simply putting the other team back in office won't fix it soon.
It will take a generation to cleanse the Trump taint off America.
2
I don't trust Trump with important information, so why would other nations and intelligence services around the world? He is a danger to our country. He is a danger to world peace and stability. This appalling chapter cannot end soon enough, and when it does, we'll be lucky if anyone ever trusts or respects America again.
2
Here’s the thing: we know. Those of us paying attention, those of us commenting here...We Know. We have watched every deliberate leak, we have listened to every sound bite, we have read every transgression. We do not need them repeated to us.
What this reader would like is for our nation’s newspapers to fully denounce this president for his actions. Do it in writing, please. Do it by way of calling out the many Republican Senators, such as the two who “represent” my state, by shaming their inaction and willingness to back this extremely dangerous president at all costs.
It’s time. The American people know its time. When will the New York Times realize that it’s time?
1
The flip side of intelligence gathering is distribution of false intel. It is shocking to think the CIA would intentionally give Trump false intel with the expectation that he'd share it with our enemies, but it wouldn't be surprising. Note: it's a crime for the intel community to publicly give false information to the press. But it's not a crime to give it covertly to the president, who could possibly then ignorantly give it to the press. And he is apparently above the law.
1
Trump's indifference and disrespect for our intelligence agencies is no laughing matter. The chaos of Trump's administration is gradually chipping away at our national security, thus increasing the threat of foreign adversaries and terrorists (both domestic and foreign). As qualified national security experts like Mattis leave, as state department heads resign, as trump alienates our allies, and legitimizes adversaries like Kim Jong Un and Vladmir Putin, refusing to hold them accountable, our enemies grow stronger and ever more dangerous to the U.S. These guys don't want to just weaken the U.S., they would destroy the U.S. if they could .... both Putin and Kim Jong Un have made no secret of this. With trump in power, along with his Republican lackeys who protect & enable him at all costs, I seriously worry for our country's safety and security. Our country cannot risk another 4 years of this ... it's not safe for any of us.
1
Today all North Carolina and ninth district go out to vote. 400 years ago my family settled on the shores of North Carolina and there buried there. From the churches to the hills in the mountains in the valley there shout out a letter this Democrat to office. We heard the snakes last night as it came out Pres. Donald Trump and VP Pence .
Don't believe their lies, the last two years both of them have tried to away with healthcare for everybody or anybody if they ever change healthcare it will only benefit the rich and powerful please believe me. And now go out to vote until the Republican Party you can't eat your cake to. Thank you North Carolina vote Democrat today.
1
Not too long ago I was viewing a movie that dealt with World War II and the British intelligence organizations.
In one conversation it was asked if the information should be shared with the Americans. No, the response was. The responder state that America had too many leaks.
The story was a dramatized version of a real event.
Here we are 70 plus years later and we find the biggest leaker since the Walker family is our very own president* who has incontinence of the mouth and fingers.
But, he has loudly proclaimed, he is president and can do what he wants. And that is very true given McConnell and the rest of the toadies dare not correct the secrets disclosing imbecile.
How many intelligence issues will be hidden from the president* given his need for attention and the use of intelligence to satisfy that need?
So, along with the scientists at NOAA tread in thin ice and fearing job loss, we will, or do, have intelligence professionals withholding information.
Ahh, but, according to some Trump is the bestest president ever.
1
So we've lost our Russian source who infiltrated the inner circle of Putin but the Russians have their "source," Trump, planted in the presidency of the US.
1
When, if ever, does it end? His corruption knows no bounds but endangering intelligence assets abroad spells treason. Benedict Arnold?
The saddest part is his base will not find this behavior troubling ...
1
I thought that his inability to discretely handle classified information would be his downfall. The Intelligence Community would realize that he couldn't be trusted with information his job required he be privy to.
I thought he would be encouraged to resign by senators who understood this; and I thought this would happen in 2017.
How naive of me.
1
I wish somebody would just put trump and all his appointees out of our misery. I suppose we'll have wait for the election, worse luck, and even more damage to our security.
1
If we were to read a novel that was predicated on some president who behaved like this, no one would think it possible.
1
If I were an ally, I wouldn’t tell us anything that the US intelligence doesn’t already know. What’s the upside?
1
If Trump were intelligent he would have refused to be sworn in to the office knowing he doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't have what it takes to be even a passable president and he's not smart enough to understand the damage he has inflicted on this country. If he cared about this country he would resign, now, and spend the rest of his days learning what it means to be a "real boy" not a "wooden-head" like Pinocchio.
1
Trump's indifference and disrespect for our intelligence agencies is no laughing matter. The chaos of his administration is gradually chipping away at our national security, thus increasing the threat of foreign adversaries and terrorists (both domestic and foreign). As qualified national security experts like Mattis leave, as state department heads resign, as trump alienates our allies, and legitimizes adversaries like Kim Jong Un and Vladmir Putin, refusing to hold them accountable, our enemies grow stronger and ever more dangerous to the U.S. These guys don't want to just weaken the U.S., they would destroy the U.S. if they could .... both Putin and Kim Jong Un have made no secret of this. With trump in power, along with his Republican lackeys who protect & enable him at all costs, I seriously worry for our country's safety and security. Our country cannot risk another 4 years of this ... it's not safe for any of us.
VOTE in 2020, and vote Blue, up and down the ticket ... as if your lives depend on it.
2
I don't understand why this and Trump's other breaches of intelligence baffle anyone.
We are all in thrall to his Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He wants to be seen as someone in the know and the only crude way he can express that is by showing off to the world. One of the ways that he does that is, sadly, by disclosing things he shouldn't.
"Sharpie-gate" shows just how far he will go to serve his craven need to be seen as right at all cost. His actions and unending lies primarily serve his bottomless pit of psycho-social needs, not the country.
1
I feel like the whole country is wed to an abusive spouse and contrary to their own well-being, they’re too afraid to call the authorities on him and have him taken out in handcuffs. Does the U.S. have a Secretary of Psychiatry? Can we make an appointment with him to find out why so many of us seem to be protecting our abuser? Elections are swell but personally I don’t think we can hold on that long. Just wearing sunglasses to hide the black eye ain’t workin’ anymore. These are oozing, open wounds that need tending to before they get infected and kill the patient
1
The President has a top security clearance, but somehow has the freedom to reveal top secret information to our enemies. Any other govt. employee or private contractor would be violating their national security oaths and be prosecuted for treason.
1
The main question :what is really this president's agenda. Is it to establish a political dynasty ,enriching himself beyond our wildest imagination, or are we witnessing a deteriorating older man wreaking havoc and causing irreparable damage to the USA standing in the world?
His son in law advises Saudi Arabia and Israel, a Wall street firm is devising new investment tools linked to the president's tweets, while he focuses on weather reporting.
On the seriously deviant side of things, he secretly invites the Taliban leadership to meet at Camp David around 9/11 ,then abruptly cancels, and roams the country to maybe inspect Dorian damage ,then naturally cancels that as well.He relishes Kim Jong Un "love letters"...
His election and enduring popularity with a large segment of the American electorate in spite of his poor judgment, are symptoms of an ailing democracy. The traditional alternance of parties will most likely be severely challenged next year.
1
Let’s just hope the entire trump clan is locked up behind bars after his defeat in 2020. Might be our only hope to keep his mouth shut while we rebuild faith and trust in our democracy.
1
Make America Credible Again: VOTE.
2
“He’s left the whole country compromised”. Nonsense. He’s left the whole world compromised.
2
You don’t have to tell Trump anything. He already knows.
2
It's not only our foreign relations where espionage is involved that our Genius President is messing up---this reluctance to share vital intelligence with us. And who can blame them when Russian, Saudi Arabian, and North Korean murderous leaders meet privately with our leader and his aides, who have access to the most sensitive classified information which they nonchalantly disseminate. Their cavalier attitude to secrecy is dangerous.
But now with his black sharpie Trump has messed up the believability of government Weather Reports, with Wilbur Cross threatening to fire government meteorologists who correct Trump's weather lies. By extension, anything , any government release, emanating from our present administration becomes tainted. A world of fakery where our leader labels reliable sources as "fake news' while he uses his magic sharpie to create fantasies which he insists are real..
1
Russia has the biggest asset of them all - the president of the United States. As long as he remains president, they have won the spy vs spy game.
1
Please be directed to "The Emperor’s New Clothes" a tale by Hans Christian Andersen... A quote from a Google post -
"What is the main idea of the emperor new clothes?
The clothes must be befitting of his supreme status. The two weavers promise him a set of clothes so fine and wonderful that only the great and good in society will be able to see it. They will be quite invisible to anyone who is stupid, incompetent or unworthy of their position in society."
Who will be the little boy that stands up and tells the truth about the leader of the free world?
2
Why am I not surprised at the information that CNN has uncovered and that you Ms. Goldberg talk about in your well sourced article?
We Americans have a "BIG MOUTH" in the Oval Office. Only a person who owes his Presidency to Russia would dare to act in the manner he does. This is a man who believes his office of Commander in Chief gives him the authority to be a King.
Listen to his words when speaking to the Press. Today it was "I will do this or I will not allow that to happen." Where is the government in all this? They are elected officials supposedly representing "we the people". The silence is deafening.
This is a man who should be in jail for so many reasons that there is not enough space to list them. Yet there he stands daily and tells us, what HE will do.
Democratic contenders, get ANGRY. I don't care about what you will do when elected. I want to know what you are doing to stop this man from continuing to make America his personal kingdom. Nancy Pelosi, it is time to impeach.
1
I’m unsure if anyone else has pointed out yet that you failed to mention the emergentSecurity council meeting with Japans premier that he held in the middle of his MarLargo restaurant to show his patrons how big and special he now was? Remember the intel community being outraged the discussions were not in one of those mobile safe tent things? There even appeared on Facebook photos of the officer carrying the “football” briefcase whatsit that follows your presidents around - again from MarLarGo.
Jeez, all foreign intel now need do is pay the cost of membership for one of his clubs (which I seem to remember doubled their annual fees immediately after his inauguration).
He is still using an insecure smart phone-as we have been periodically anonymously briefed about, presumably in an effort to publicly embarrass Trump into altering the practice, since we are told that both Russia and China (& presumably everyone else) are privy to the entirety of each conversation he has on the insecure phone. Trump apparently doesn’t understand what intel advantages could be gained by listening into what are “private” calls.
These are just some of the dangers we know of. Can you imagine what good reading we will eventually have from insiders regarding Trumps hidden behaviour?
1
Trump should be deported to Russia never to return when time comes for a plea deal.
2
If you can't trust the President of the United States, who can you trust ?
2
I am so glad you and the NYT picked up on this. This is absolutely insane. It is excruciatingly, mind-numbingly, mind-boggling what is happening right in front of our faces. The intelligence community thinks the president is an intrinsic security risk. I just cannot understand what is happening in this country.
It would be nice if the Ds could take a page from the R playbook and hammer home what a national security risk this clown is.
2
@Chris Democrats aren't the problem here. But I agree with you ... trump and Republicans have signaled that they'll sink to all new lows to avoid losing power in 2020. Democrats should be prepared to do some mud slinging of their own, but they need to be smart about it.
2
I desperately miss the day when the biggest White House issue was those beautiful arms of Michelle Obama.
2
Our collective "intelligence" is degrading in more ways than one. Start with Betsy Devos and public education.
1
The Trump Presidency has let the cat out of the bag. We are not the great country we think we are. Thank you Trump.
As has been clear for several years already to anyone with eyes and ears, Trump, the entire Trump family, and, now, many, many in the Republican Party, are beholden to Vladimar Putin. With the Trump's it is quite simple. No one in US, especially their own New York, could trust them anymore, so they couldn't get financing there. So, where was the most easily accessible money? Saudi Arabia, of course, but also Russia and her Oligarchs, as well as a couple of other related dictator states. That explains just about everything--the rest can be blamed on Evangelical "Christians."
4
Suppose Trump is defeated in 2020. The best course of action to protect national security at that point would be for the House to vote articles of impeachment immediately after the election and for the Senate to remove him promptly and disqualify him as provided in the Constitution from holding any office. All done within days.
If a Trump anxious about defeat is acting as he does, imagine what he might do after the election, when his prospects are a menu of criminal and civil indictments.
This would nullify the matter of self-pardoning, remove him permanently from further attempts at public office, minimize the length of a Pence presidency, and contain the risk of what Trump might do.
A landslide vote against Trump's re-election would put the Republican Senate under pressure to convict him. A landslide vote against Trump would likely mean the Democrats gain control of the Senate on January 3, 2021, and could start the trial if Republicans fail to do so.
7
When Donald J. Trump told reporters, and the world, that he believed Putin over his own intelligence sources; it should have been seen by every American, particular our intelligence sources that this man could not be trusted with any sensitive information. It was the day that we all observed our president become a Putinite, not a loyal American citizen.
5
There is no question that Trump would not be granted security clearance if he had to seek clearance the old-fashioned way.
Shouldn't the nation upgrade its political processes a bit by requiring candidates for the presidency and Congress to obtain security clearances prior to being placed on the ballot? I suggest this as an amendment to the Constitution.
7
Someone recently mentioned that Americans should have been out in the streets protesting and stopping traffic long before now due to all of the norms being shattered by this so-called "president" and his Republican enablers. I can't speak for others, but I may have lost my nerve with regard to joining others for a mass protest due to the large number of my fellow Americans who are heavily armed, and who might want to disrupt a demonstration by firing shots. I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to lose my life for anything remotely associated with Donald Trump.
6
@furnmtz We should all march. Straight to the voting booths to vote Blue, up and down the ticket. The party may have its flaws and it's far from perfect, but a Democratic win in 2020 is a step in the more preferable direction ... far better than the alternative direction this country could go in if trump and the GOP retain their power for another 4 years. Whether he's your 1st choice or not, Joe Biden is right ... the 2020 elections will be for the soul of our country.
9
We never had to be concerned about this until Trump came along, but in these times, every candidate for President must be able to pass all the requirements for a TOP SECRET CLEARANCE. Anything less is not any good.
Most prior candidates would have no problem qualifying. I do not believe Trump would ever have qualified.
He has absolutely no idea what National Security is all about.
17
Trump has no idea what anything is about, other than himself.
5
Again another great column denouncing Trump’s unfitness to be President. And nothing happens. Democratic leadership is focused on winning the primaries- that’s political malpractice- it leads to damage, pain and suffering.
6
@Efraín Ramírez -Torres Democrats are not the problem here. Democrats in the House and Senate are the only ones trying to minimize and limit the damage this trump administration is creating. While impeachment is another question entirely, Democrats are still investigating, even though trump is doing everything in his power to obstruct and undermine those investigations.
It's the Republicans who have abandoned their oath to keep a check on the executive branch, not the Democrats.
10
@Efraín Ramírez -Torres What else can the Democrats do? The primaries are a means of choosing the best candidate to challenge Trump. Also, the Democrats are in the midst of an impeachment inquiry, and a decision on that will be made in December.
4
A citizenry of a nation in the throes of a general decline are never able to perceive it as such, though they recognize the times they are living through are unprecedented. It is only through the lens of history that the truth stands revealed. I wonder what history will have to say about our era, eh?
John~
American Net'Zen
8
Treason? Telling your enemies neighbors or allies that you are spying on them may not be treasonous,but revealing how,to whom,and why may be.
7
As a 74 year old Vietnam Vet now retired, I've lived through the emotional craziness of the late 60s and early 70s when I personally saw America lose it's mind and produce psychopaths like Charles Manson and his gang of Hippy murderers in the name of love. It was a time when I had to be very selective about who I told I was a former Sgt. in the Army during the war. Kind of like I feel now about telling people in this part of Ohio (Trump Land) I'm a Reform Jew and have been a working class Democrat all my life. I hope I live long enough to see America once again heal itself from it's own internal craziness. But this time is different. The security of our nation and it's Democracy (even with it's flaws, it's still the greatest nation in the world) is now threaten by our own traitorous president and his ignorant True Believers at his rallies. Will America survive four more years of a maniac for a president?
28
@Gert It is incredibly sad that, even as a veteran, you have to be careful about who you share your identity and political values with these days, for fear of retaliation by trump's followers.
Thank you for your service.
12
@Roberta You've got reality backwards. Anyone can walk down the street wearing a Beto, Warren or Bernie cap free of fear.
Anyone who dares to wear a MAGA hat in public puts themselves at risk for getting harassed or worse. And there's hundreds of examples of videos on youtube that illustrate this point.
@Gert...Wow, you said a mouthful and speak for many of us who shared your experiences. We are now fighting a different war on our own home front, and yet again too many Americans are disengaged. For all the trauma of the Vietnam era, I felt much more optimistic about our country then, than I do under the faux patriotism of Trump and his phony loyalists. Let’s hope we all persevere to bring an end to this horrific chapter in our history. Perhaps one day we’ll all look back and view this as the ultimate test of our democracy—if we can pass.
2
I seriously doubt that the nuclear codes are given to Trump, I am sure they give him fake number just in case .....
10
Just as the US had an agent in Moscow with access to the Kremlin, so the Russians have for some years had an asset at the highest levels of the American government—a shadowy figure known to the intelligence community only as Deejay Tee. We can only hope that the someday the true identity of this infiltrator will be discovered so that the ongoing betrayal of US secrets will be ended and the Russians thus forced to call him back to Moscow.
12
@everydayispoetry Will Moscow ever recall Trump? If so, will that convince the Trumpsters that the problem we all had was ........ Trump.
3
@everydayispoetry Perhaps he could take donald back to Russia with him. They’d be perfect roomies.
3
"The president personally overruled intelligence officials to demand that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be given a top-secret security clearance. Kushner, in turn, may have passed American intelligence to Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s homicidal crown prince; according to The Intercept, the prince boasted to confidants that he’d discussed Saudis disloyal to the regime with Kushner. Shortly after these alleged conversations, the crown prince initiated a purge."
It seems clear that Jared Kushner and Donald Trump are directly responsible, in part, for the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
20
Brian, it was no secret that Jamal Khashoggi was critical of the Saudi regime. He published his criticisms of the crown prince, in particular, in the Washington Post and other newspapers.
The idea that Jared Kushner blabbed secret intelligence about Saudi dissidents is pure speculation that has no evidence to support it. It's a shame that fantasy means more than facts to Trump's political enemies.
2
@John Smithson
Considering that Trump blurted out or shared photographic classified intelligence on more than one occasion, and the U.S. intelligence was extremely concerned with Jared Kushner's security clearance, on top of the fact that Donald Trump and Jared Kushner have been caught in a combination of over 12,000 lies and misstatements since Trump's inauguration, I'll believe our U.S. intelligence and outside sources like The Intercept ANY day over the serial-lying Trump family. And the majority of Americans agree.
2
@Brian And probably the murder of others whose names are unknown to us.
1
Think of the secrets an ex president Trump will disclose to get development rights in Russia and elsewhere.
14
What a beautiful choice of a word: logorrhea
In psychology, logorrhea or logorrhoea is a communication disorder that causes excessive wordiness and repetitiveness, which can sometimes lead to incoherency. Logorrhea is sometimes classified as a mental illness, though it is more commonly classified as a symptom of mental illness or brain injury.
Trump to a T.
15
I have always wondered what Trump told Putin during their private “ one on one” conversation. I doubt they talked about the weather.
12
Are we sure Trump isn't really Bob & Ray's Elmer W. Litzinger, Spy?
1
@Helena Handbasket
Now, that brought a smile to my face!. Thanks for the memory.
1
He's a greater threat to our country's security than the Taliban, Russia and China all rolled into one.
16
Just imagine if President Obama arranged to meet with the Taliban at Camp David. Trump, McConnell, and the rest of the GOP hypocrites would be screaming from the rafters and probably launching impeachment proceedings.
14
"The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. He’s left the whole country compromised." - And thus the world.
If one were to stack all of the New York Times (never mind all the other news organizations) damning articles about the total incompetence of Trump, compounded by his deliberate ignorance, and apply those articles to any other sitting president, that president would be sent packing. What's frightening about this Administration is how all those around Trump continually aid and abet this man and even more frightening, his Republican supporters are completely on board with, "Make America Great Again."
14
Republicans’ heads were exploding when President Obama wore a brown suit.
1
The US intelligence community is part of a worldwide consortium of intelligence agencies. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK are perhaps our closet intelligence partners, sharing signals intelligence as part of FiveEyes. But we rely on the goodwill and trust of the rest of our friends as well: Germany, the Dutch, Israel, other EU countries, etc.
If the US intelligence community is perceived as compromised or untrustworthy for any reason, the flow of information to us may be limited. This renders us less safe.
Clearly, Donald’s antics in the Oval Office, disclosing Israeli intelligence to Kislyak, his taunting release of a classified photo of the Iranian space center, his confiscation of notes/secrecy around one on one’s with Putin etc., must rightfully raise red flags for our partners.
That he isn’t hounded out of office for his stupidity over this alone is staggering to me.
13
Of all the objectionable and crude policy and politics of Trump this childish behavior is the most stunning in its penchant for danger and war.
7
Is Trump so desperate for attention that he's willing to throw the US under the bus, or is he ignorant and thoughtless, or is it possible that he is not on the side of the United States? If Trump owes money to Russian oligarchs, he has to pay them back somehow. If he can't pay cash, he'll pay them with the United States.
8
@Linda The response to each of your three questions is "yes."
1
@Linda Those three possible explanations for trump's decidedly anti-American behavior aren't mutually exclusive.
1
Trump supporters appear to be more and more like cult followers than US citizens. The President has committed dozens of outrageous acts, made endless appalling statements and provable lies that would end the career of any other politician but the deadenders still cling to him. No matter how much damage he does to his own country and to its image around the world it doesn't matter to them as long as he continues his overt racism, misogyny, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and endless hate speech.
7
@Tom Barrett Observe the pretzels they've twisted themselves into trying to defend Trump's latest display of petulant childishness involving a weather map & a sharpie. It would be funny if it wasn't so disturbing.
1
"...America “extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government,”...
When will Russia extract Trump and bring him back to Russia?
10
The greatest oxymoron in American History: Trump and Intelligence, in one sentence.
Mic drop.
14
This is why all patriotic citizens should vote Democrat. No matter how you feel about health care, immigration or climate change.
9
A President who can't be trusted.
That's all anyone needs to know about Trump.
12
Hats off to Tom Brenner for that foreboding photo: the storm clouds and deep black recall the 1859 painting, Approaching Thunder Storm by Martin Johnson Heade.
2
Oh, he can be trusted. He can be trusted to aggrandize and enrich himself.
8
CIA officials have completely debunked the CNN report uppon which Goldberg bases her commentary.
Trust in Trump had nothing to do with the extraction of the Moscow asset.
It seems that the NY Time and CNN have become indistinguishable.
How embarrassing.
3
@Objectivist Hmmm, thanks for the link.
1
@Objectivist Reported by Fox "News". I read the piece. And there is some disputing of facts.
However, the piece was more of a slam at CNN than what I would call responsible journalism which is typical of Fox "News".
To believe what Fox "News" reports as accurate is very embarrassing.
3
@Objectivist And as for the rest? Trump tweeting a classified photo and revealing to our enemies information about our capabilities? Your obsequiousness is what's embarrassing. Yet another example of why Trump loves the "poorly educated."
3
Any other American citizen would have been charged with treason. Why are we so reluctant to admit that our elected president is betraying our country - and every single citizen in it, rich or poor, white or black - every single day. And we are doing nothing about it.
6
Meanwhile, on the home front, white supremacy activists and domestic terrorists are on a sharp rise as Trump and his sycophantic enablers give a wink and a nod to racists and other “good people” in their effort to “Make America Great Again”. And The Department of Homeland Security devotes meager resources to addressing these threats, which far eclipse those from international terrorism.
Our national security from enemies both foreign and domestic is in great peril as long as Trump remains in office. Hmm, seems that I recall Trump raising his right hand to take a pledge to “protect and defend” the Constitution of the United States. But his buddies in the Kremlin will again wreak havoc on our upcoming elections, and Trump and his Republican Party will do nothing to protect our democracy.
Are you truly an American patriot if you vote to let this continue?
7
Time to impeach. What on earth are we waiting for?
9
Putin has his "asset" sitting behind the desk at the oval office. In the intelligence game that would be a checkmate.
5
Last time I checked, Trump wasnt the one who had classified emails on a private computer, or have a FBI director illegally handle a case for him...
2
If this person had access to the highest levels in the Kremlin, then he/she should not be too difficult to identify. The Russians will soon learn who is no longer coming to work, and who no longer lives at that address.
This spy's life is in perpetual danger.
2
With a president like this, we don't need enemies.
6
And on a parallel note, it has been alleged that in 2016 under Theresa May, British spy chiefs asked that then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson not be shown certain “sensitive intelligence” as they did not “trust” him and believed he was a security risk.
Trump-booster Johnson, may have a better vocabulary than our kindergarten president, but he is as fond of the sound of his own voice as Trump, as the imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe learned to her cost when he erroneously described her as “training journalists,” causing the Iranian authorities to threaten to double her sentence. In June, Richard Ratcliffe described Johnson’s premiership as a potential threat to national security.
At a time of heightened world tensions and Russian cyberattacks, that the leaders of two of the world’s greatest democracies are not even trusted by their own intelligence people is appalling and terrifying.
5
Correction: 25th Amendment.
4
I'm not sure what is worse - living life in fear all the time, never knowing what awful thing will happen next? Or is it all of the people in the USA who voted for Trump and believe that he's doing good things? Or is it that we have an election coming up for another president and that it too will probably be hacked? Or that at any time we might have new trade tariffs that threaten our economy, our international relationships - and purchasing power?
If that's what it is like to be a citizen of the U.S.A. these days, I think that our system of government is seriously flawed. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - seems that only lilfe is what we have now. Our liberty is threatened, and the happiness is gone - due to the constant overhang of anxiety and worries about tomorrow.
355
@joyrenee
You have described the life of many on this earth. I almost wonder if we ever processed any of the things we feel we have lost. Seems our world gets smaller and smaller and too much information has destroyed our ignorance and we know too much.
16
@joyrenee
Yours is one of the best comments I've read in a long time. You really nailed it!
29
And without good health insurance, you cannot be guaranteed that you have "life" either.
18
Now that he is exposed as a Russian asset, can Putin please return the favor and extract Trump?
5
Trumps squanders intelligence assets with the same care uses in playing a fair round of golf. When you consider the research, money, and in some cases human blood spent to gain advantages on our adversaries, and carelessness Trump uses in stroking his ego when trying to look big to some other world leader, it's amazing we have any advantages left. Trump is the best asset an enemy could have.
I hope our intelligence agencies use Trump's psychological weaknesses as an asset to confuse our adversaries, making Trump a useful idiot in more ways than one.
2
Let's ask James Risch (who?) or Devin Nunes what they think. They must have American security interests —as opposed to partisan solipsism— at the center of their modes of behaviour. Musn't they?
3
I am deeply troubled by the notion that we have shown ourselves capable of electing someone like Trump. That is the damage that will take generations to fix. We are in desperate need of a shift towards common sense and a belief in facts and truth. I have come to distrust many of my old friends and neighbors who might share views that Trump can appeal to which makes the return to civility more difficult.
4
Times story also details that CIA wanted source out of Russia before Trump took office, but that source initially refused. Then CIA began to question allegiance of source. In early 2017 as media stories proliferated with increasing levels of specificity, they asked source again. This time he agreed.
Hard to see how Trump played a part...
2
A common question heard around these parts is "When will Congress do its Constitutionally mandated job and put an end to this madness?"
The obvious answer is "never". Not this Congress, certainly.
I have never voted a straight ticket in my life, and I've participated in every National, State, and local election since 1972. November, 2020 will see me selecting every single "D" that I can find on the ballot.
14
In today’s world, anyone can and will question facts and the motivation of sources. What can’t be questioned are two realities; Trump’s need for attention and his love of directing the course of world events. Whether it is holding campaign rallies or taking credit any event occurring anywhere, Trump needs to be the focus of fake or real news. Being president of the most nation allows Trump to force others to submit to his desires. As Billy Bush can affirm, when you are famous, they let you do it!
2
Trump's revealed the need for another new law (in addition to releasing tax returns and divesting from business interests): If you don't qualify for a TS/SCI clearance, you can't be President.
8
Helsinki was a turning point. It is an open secret that foreign ministries and intelligence agencies around the world that had long shared their findings with the US are now not only holding back, but are targeting Trump and his circle in their intelligence efforts. The US has clearly lost its position as the head of the West.
8
Defeat Trump in 2020 or be prepared for the inevitable. Trump will release an executive order overriding 10 year/2 term limit and effectively install himself as president for life.
9
I remember that when President Obama was elected, some Republican panicked that he would access to "sensitive information". Of course the president would have access to sensitive information; it's his job. But I have never heard of any problem resulting from this access. On the other hand, this article lists numerous cases of Trump's misuse of the information. Where are Republican critics now? Worshipping Trump, of course.
22
Wilbur Ross threatened to fire NOOA appointees if they didn't release a statement undermining the NWS. Trump's use of the possessive pronoun, my, referring to generals or the military is frightening. Should they follow his claims in a future election defeat, along with his zealots armed with automatic weapons that will be the end of democracy. Since Republicans, who are led by Trump's co-conspirator Mitch McConell, refuse to act on Trump's increasingly autocratic actions they will be responsible for the chaos that will ensue should that come to fruition.
12
@rhdelp
End of democracy? When did it start? One half of one of the three branches of federal government is democratic. The president is not elected by a democratic process. What we have is ambitions of democracy in a Republic. What democracy we have is being destroyed by Republicans.
10
@Mike Holloway
republicans always say democrat with a sneer. And they almost always say we're a republic not a democracy, and they're right we've been fooled into thinking we were a democracy , but now we know -- time to make some changes.
1
I believe if Trump had his way completely he would weld American intelligence agencies into instruments of his political power- further corrupting their integrity and as a result ability to gather useful intelligence.
And that gathering ability is essential to the security and well being of the United States and its allies.
I don't know what percentage of Americans really understand the implications of what they have wrought in the 2016 election and continued Republican support for this Administration. And remember, Trump has insured it is not just him- but a coterie of cronies who would bend the truth to serve their political ends.
The recent weather map debacle- while pulling attention away from the devastation in the Bahamas- also reminds us that Trump and cronies would even try to bend the weather to their liking- except the weather is Nature and Nature is unsparing- and even more so to a recalcitrant and increasingly corrupt nation.
22
Thank You Michelle Goldberg for speaking truth to lies coming from the Trump Administration. They are undermining our security to protect Trump, even when he falsely proclaimed that Hurricane Dorian was threatening Alabama. He could drag us Into war over a misperceived threat.
19
Trump has dementia with behavioral disturbance. His outside images (of an internal condition) are distorted. It is more apparent now that he has become increasingly incapacitated.
His entourage have followed him into a "far country" by thinking the causes of his concerns are external. Projection of pathology outward is the roller-coaster ride of madness when things are tainted at the source.
17
@Thomas
Mr Trump is the expert of experts on being victimized. That in itself is a telling indication of what he believes.
Watching what is happening here in the U.S. and what is happening in the UK there seems to be a mutual theme.
That truly scares me.
Just an old white man's opinion.
1
@Thomas
With the stroke of a Sharpie trump has revealed how crazy he is and how stupid he thinks the American people are. But he is mistaken, and he's made to many mistakes. His treatment of immigrants shows that he's so crazy he's behaving like a wannabe Hitler, and the craven republicans are so corrupt that they go along with it.
1
It would be funny if it weren't so troubling that people who publicly advocated locking Hillary Clinton up because her personal server COULD have been hacked simply yawn at Trump's actual breaches of national security. We are in trouble.
45
This wonderful democracy has a very real leadership problem. Why do we have one person, who is so incompetent and dangerous, in unchecked control of “our” government.
It really doesn’t look much like a democracy from where I’m standing.
20
As Putin's invest continues to pay dividends.
21
Does Jared still have his own top level clearance?
What's Jared selling, as he grifts his way around the Middle East?
14
B y any standard of managing security risks, this "Trumpian White House" appears to be the greatest. In other days, this was called treason and punished severely. Is it possible that Trump may be Russia's "Trojan Horse" ?
14
Sadly it is the lack of filtered thought, that is appealing to Trump's base, it would appear. He speaks as though he is transparent which is what his followers like about him. The more he speaks the more they know what is going on in the country, because oops Trump lets the cat out of the bag, he just can't help it, every time he has an intelligence briefing or a political meeting, there's verbal diarrhea to follow, much to the thrill of his base.
5
Imagine all those contacts and sources in Moscow who are all scrambling to escape before Putin kills them and ask: what persons would risk their lives knowing Trump is President? In Helsinki, Trump declared his loyalty to Putin and distrust in our Intelligence Services. Someone must make the case to the American people that Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to America and all those who wok for the American people.
18
The Republicans have become Roseanne Roseannadannas of America. Many of the things they used to constantly rail about, including national security and national debt, they are now saying, "oh, never mind."
7
@Michael
Actually, that was Miss Emily Litella, not Roseanne Rosannadanna (though also played by Gilda Radner). But you're also right in that their litany of pet hates fall into the category of "It's always something!"
1
@Michael
I think you meant "Emily Latella".... ;)
1
An important fact regarding Trump's mentation—
Even if he has been "briefed" or "informed", he is still uninformed.
10
Trump's disclosures of secret intelligence information serves to isolate us further from allied nations and individuals who share it with us. That is a downside for the rest of us, but it is upside for Trump. When he does it he is degrades our ties to our traditional allies and replaces those with ties to brutal despots all over the globe. I doubt Trump is smart enough to deliberately burn assets for this purpose, but he is smart enough to realize there is no downside for him when he does it.
4
Another clear and timely column from Michelle Goldberg.
No other country can ever trust or respect our country after the debacle of the Trump presidency and the despicable behavior of his supporters and enablers in Congress.
13
I'm confused. Giving classified information to foreign powers that may damage your country's security and standing. Giving aid and comfort to an enemy (e.g., protecting and defending Russia over US interests). Didn't we used to call this treason?
Perhaps those who facilitate his corrupt reign will worry enough about their own hides to reconsider just how far they should go to protect him. They do seem to be motivated by self interest.
13
These are criminal offenses. Divulging classified information lands people in jail. Any law enforcement officer, military personnel, or civilian, that committed these acts would have a slew of justice department prosecutors throwing the book at them and an equal number of FBI agents filling in the pages.
But not so with King Trump. According to the dedicated guardians of our realm, a sitting president cannot be indicted. Retired generals who have first hand knowledge of such deeds keep their mouths shut because it would be bad form spill the beans on a sitting president. All administration officials who swore an oath to protect our nation won't dare speak out against the stable genius. The CEO class remains mum because they got bought off with a massive tax cut.
All that remains is the press who have been demonized as enemies of state by our fearless leader, King Trump.
Utilizing Republican logic, we can't investigate these matters because they involve classified information so it's hands off.
Meanwhile, N. Korea is developing deadly medium range missiles, Russian operatives are having a field day with the internet, Syria is lost, Iran is spinning up highly refined U235, and Saudi Arabia is killing people like crazy.
Sometimes the best political calculation no longer applies. King Trump is causing so much trouble that he must be taken down. This may be bad politics, but the public deserves to know the truth, verified in an open trial and displayed by the press.
8
It is not Trump. I wish you could stop giving the Republicans a pass. A little less than half of the country does not give a hoot about submarines or national security risks. Political parties, the Senate and House of Representatives should be the intermediaries that modulate some information.
But the Republicans decided that all this is completely secondary compared with winning, and they all went behind Trump, and we all should never forget it and vote them out of office.
Trump is the Republican party, and this party is not qualified to hold any administration. The last one attacked Iraq with lies. This one has a complete greedy ignoramus at the helm. The Republican Party is a security risk.
9
The process of cataloguing his destructions simply must continue, so that by next November no one will be in a position to claim ignorance, the President excepted.
6
If the rest of the world doesn't trust Trump, why and how do we?
Our priceless assets of morality, intelligence and strength have been quickly sold to our most formidable sworn enemies at bargain basement prices and replaced by hypocrisy, greed and corruption, all for the benefit of a single narcissist whose needs can never be met. In one way or another, we are all responsible for this devilish destruction.
Last one out, please turn off the lights. On second thought, just leave them on forever if they're powered by fossil fuels.
Vote.
7
Trump cannot be trusted with any information even including a weather map!For him “tweeting” to get attention is way more important than the origin of the words he uses.Because he so often lies most do not take his tweets seriously but foreign governments are aware when he is disclosing sensitive information.At the G7 meeting the allies found ways to work around Trump’s most toxic behavior.We can be certain that if these aides cannot trust him in public, they surely cannot trust him with private information.
6
We may never know how much important intelligence information has been withheld by our “former” allies. This is a sad indictment of Failure Trump and his loose and uncontrolled mouth. We, the people, insist that the GOP take their constitutional power and put Failure Trump in his place.....that is a long way away from the WH.
7
Democrats continue to focus on Trump's racism, but I think the most persuasive argument for ousting him in 2020 is his incompetence. People who voted for him either don't agree that he's racist or don't care, but there's a chance they'll judge him harshly on his performance. In addition to mishandling sensitive intelligence, just in the past week or two we've seen him bungle a hurricane (in a particularly embarrassing fashion) and destroy Afghan peace talks (another situation in which he leaked secret information). His "easy" trade war has turned into an expensive disaster, North Korea is still producing nukes, and despite all of his promises, Mexico is still not paying for any wall. There is a long list of failures to attach to his name, and the Dems should be branding him as a failure.
11
I want to pose the possibility that perhaps this is Trump's goal- to shut down the intelligence access the US has had and to shut down the intelligence sharing between other countries and the US. A country in the dark is a country more easily manipulated and brainwashed, and more susceptible to the mechanisms of demagogues and autocrats like Putin and Trump. Perhaps his ultimate goal is to isolate us as a country-economically, in the intelligence sector, and in the world's ability to trust us as partners. Like an abused wife, America is much easier to control when isolated.
9
Much easier to get your trophy war, allowing the wearing of the your tailored dictator uniform, when you don’t have to get buy in from former allies, and the rest of the world is already tired of our stupidity. Remember that for Trump, born in ‘46, Americas greatness peaked in those formative 20 years after the war. General Ike was President from his 7th to 15th year, and I can imagine that was his very first memory of what a President looked like. MAGA is all about the 50’s,around the time young Donnie’s emotional and intellectual intelligence peaked.
1
A compulsive Commander-In-Chief who has no filter and prioritizes instant gratification over the security of his troops and country has no place being in that position. He needs to either be impeached or removed from office by dint of Article 20 of our Constitution. Congress and/or the President's Cabinet need to effect such legal remedies as soon as possible - lest he further harms our beloved nation.
7
Cannot help but think Trump did this on purpose. He owes Putin.
6
I can only hope that our allies are watching and listening with spies around the world to pick up on the POTUS's loose talk with our adversaries. Trump is so egotistical that he is no doubt bragging to them about what he knows that is 'top secret' and trying to impress them. I truly hope that the intelligence briefings for Trump are limited and that crucial info is held back. Are the R's in the Congress and Senate just going to sit back and watch Trump sell out our country and our intelligence people?
2
@Gina, there would be no need for spies in the world if everyone was as chatty garrulous as Trump! We would all know each other’s secrets. LOL
2
" . . . The Times cited former intelligence officials who said there’s “no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source.” It’s hard to know exactly how to parse the word “directly,” . . . "
While you're wondering how to parse "directly endangered," perhaps we should also be wondering how to parse "no PUBLIC evidence."
What evidence could, or should, possibly be "public," about how Trump might have endangered an irreplaceable intelligence source?
1
The CIA said "there is no public evidence" that Trump "directly" endangered the source.
Why would the CIA need to say "public" evidence? Wouldn't any evidence of such endangerment be classified? And what does directly mean? That Trump didn't call Putin and give him the name directly?
There is so much rot here it's beyond comprehension. After reading this and Krugman's piece, there is no doubt that impeachment is in order. I don't care if it hurts the Democrats chances. The fate of the Republic is balance here; this cannot be allowed to stand.
10
This mentally and emotionally unstable man is so driven by his need to show everybody how much he knows, that in so doing, he exhibits how minimal his knowledge actually is.
And how many more national secrets did he disclose in his one-on-one conversation with Putin when no one else was allowed in the room?
Every day he proves anew that he's a walking disaster.
Where's the 25th Amendment when it is so desperately needed?
10
Between his leaking of secret information and his attitudes about and lack of service in the military, Trump is the most unpatriotic president we’ve had in a long time.
4
Irony of ironies. While the United States exfiltrated one of its top intelligence assets from Russia, Russia still has its top intelligence asset, Trump, firmly in place—in large part because he’s not very, well, intelligent.
10
“no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source.”
Maybe true but his loose mouth and disrespect for our intelligence services would most likely have become an existential threat to our spy in Moscow.
3
John Brennan, May 24: "The concern is that very, very precious sources and methods...is Mr. Barr, who doesn't have an understanding of the equities involved, is he going to just release information that he deems appropriate for Mr. Trump's defense?"
Did Barr release this info about this CIA spy?
4
We might as well bring all our spies home since Trump doesn't listen to them anyway.
4
One imagines that the Intelligence community were immediately wary of Trump from around the time of "Trust me, I’m like a smart person....”
3
"but the undermining of American intelligence capabilities is one of the overarching stories of his administration."
That was always the 'modus operandi' of Donald Trump. His brain is bigger than anyone's brain. The worst people never listen to others. The essence of presidential is to seek intelligence from a wide range of others.
"Nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do.
"I know more about people who get ratings than anyone." know more about ISIS than the generals do."
"I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost anybody"
"I know more about courts than any human being on Earth."
"Who knows more about lawsuits than I do? I'm the king."
"I understand politicians better than anybody."
"Nobody knows the system better than me. I know the H1B. I know the H2B. ... Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me"
"Nobody knows more about trade than me."
"Nobody knows the system better than I do."
"I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth."
"I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world."
"I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me."
"I understand money better than anybody."
"Look, as a builder, nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump."
"I know more about Cory Booker than he knows about himself.”...
5
“C.I.A. officials worried about safety made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia”- Your own newspaper
How could it be that the CIA was concerned Trump would expose the source if he was offered extraction in 2016?
1
@Nick zararis
"late 2016" -- Would not most people read that as being exactly what it says, i.e., late in the year? As in, perhaps, November or December? :)
1
Trump has degraded everything that made the US great; now US is the laughing stock of the world while, at the same time, Trump has trashed honor and integrity. Too bad his supporters love this.
8
Anyone anywhere in the world informed as to Trump's election and his chaotic and dysfunctional administration already know all about all of this. Trump's election was not expected because many of us were sure no candidate as obnoxious and divisive would get many votes. Yet sadly we were wrong. Too many American Voters decided that Voting for the bully was a good idea. Even with all the chaos and confusion surrounding his administration there are still far too many of us still supporting the worst President in American History ! He has a Fox's Nation of support as well as that of the GOP,the NRA, Barr etc. How unAmerican is that? Even the well intentioned who have resigned from the Trump Administration have largely remained silent. How unPatriotic is that? I think most are waiting for Trump to leave office and they hope to return to normal. That may not happen. Our Democracy and standing in the world have suffered. We have only Trump supporters to blame. Those supporters are our neighbors,coworkers,friends,and family. They Vote and their Vote in 2016 ..imperiled our Democracy !! Our Freedom wasn't Free..and the Russians have taken our Freedom and we cooporated with them. Now the Voting minority have usurped authority over the Majority of Voters and non Voters alike. Trump support is simply...UnAmerican and UnPatriotic. No matter what the Fox's News says !! The Patriotic thing to do is to Vote our way back to our rightful standing in the world !
2
Let's be honest...we do not have a President of the United States---our country is running on autopilot---God help us if we have a Max-8 failure.
6
“The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone.”
That alone might have been forgivable given the corrupt circumstances under which he won the electoral college, but the fact that one of the major parties actively supported, defended, and encouraged his actions once in office is the real long term problem. Trump will go away one day. His party will not, unfortunately.
3
All impeachable defenses and actions that if taken by Obama would have caused the republicans to impeach him. What are we waiting for? The complete eviscerating of our inteliitence community’s? Trump is a national security threat.
8
@Poor Richard: The Republican Party itself is a full court press to foster ignorance and superstition.
2
Wish that Democrats who get air time on Fox would cite all this behavior. Otherwise, it's not even heard.
9
All this talk this morning about not letting in "bad people" from the Bahamas, and insisting on visas and passports from Bahamians whose lives have been devastated and houses are gone, much less their passports--
when the biggest threat to American & global security is our own President, equalled but perhaps not surpassed by the gun lobby, which the President and his supporters seem not to acknowledge as the biggest domestic threat to the safety of ordinary Americans.
10
@Concerned Mother, Trump reflects the cynicism Americans feel and express, on a daily basis.
Oh, wait until Trump has left office and established his own tabloid style tv station. He will be running his mouth 24/7.
4
Treason immediately comes to mind when thinking about the outrages Trump delivers daily via his twitter feed and actions that smack the American Public in the face.
Passing sensitive intel to our enemies. Profiting massively from the Office. Thumbing his nose at convention. Obstructing justice. Destroying the rule of law throughout the government.
Daily outrages thoroughly supported by the Trump base. They enjoy giving apoplexy to the "libs", "snowflakes", "elites". But the anger isn't misplaced. Patriots from the inception of the Republic to this day have given their lives for our country and Trump trashes their sacrifice.
I ran across the last letters by Nathan Hale and it brought tears to my eyes.
13
You hit the nail squarely on its head. We are the source of and therefore responsible for Trump. We have failed to create an educational system that results in people who can select representatives who can be trusted. To be a democracy, we must support the learning of all the people. Currently, we fail at this miserably as all can see in Trump and his ilk.
7
Valerie Plame? Where on the Republican priority list is loyalty to country? It seems the security of our national intelligence services and the safety of personnel are worth little when set beside a political gambit.
19
He has already said that he’ll get his “REVENGE” after he leaves office. This sounds like a threat regarding national secrets to me. Couple that with the acts already attributable to him and what we have is a danger to the US.
17
Intelligence is a word with multiple meanings. We say someone is intelligent when he or she has a large store of knowledge and demonstrates the ability to use it in powerfully. We define intelligence services as groups of individuals tasked with the acquisition and interpretation of information which others seek to hide from the world. These intelligence services do their work to give their governments the ability to know the capability and probable actions of a hostile actor be it an individual "lone wolf" or an entire nation-state.
Our PINO (President-in-name-only) only views intelligence as a tool to pump himself up. Everythiing is valuable only as it is referential to Him. ("biggest inauguration ever", "best economy ever", "I alone can fix it"...).
Most importantly, secrecy and proper handling of classified information is antithetical to self-aggrandizement. What good is it to have the "best" down-looking spy camera in space if you do you show others you have such a thing. Our president "spills the beans" because he wants everyone to know just how many beans he holds.
Adversaries know progressively more when all the beans are displayed. They can infer sources and methods and seek to cut off these sources or, more perniciously, use them to salt disinformation for their own ends.
We cannot sustain our country with another four years of malign governance by our faux president.
5
"The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. He’s left the whole country compromised."
One conman unfit president and his enablers...we are bleeding by a thousand cuts. Not only have we put Trump in office and, more importantly endured him for what will be four years at least, we have shown how flawed we are. We are this Oz little insecure man behind the curtain and with a humongous arsenal. The world had better not rely on us and take their own measures.
Pelosi says we are not there yet.. the public is not with us. I now rue the day she was voted to lead. No case being made by public hearings which should have happened already, this is a catch 22, a horror show we are forced to endure.
12
Trump is a Russian asset. The degree to which will not be revealed until after he's out of office. But, our intelligence community knows. There was no "Deep State" when Trump took office, but after his secret meetings with Putin, there has become one. It's mission is not to "get Trump," but to protect our country from a Russian asset in the White House.
15
When is the “high crimes and misdemeanors” threshold is met? We have a prodigious Russian asset heading our government and no one in his political party is willing to deploy the Constitutional remedy to remove him. It is beyond absurd.
15
trump is like the guy at the end of the bar that tries too hard to impress everyone with his intelligence. He says things that are not meant to be heard by anyone other than people with the appropriate clearances. trump's response when asked why he tweeted out the top-secret picture. " I have every right to". This is scary times my friends. We need to get him out before he does catastrophic damage to the country.
13
There’s “no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source.”
Which can only mean that there is non-public evidence that Mr. Trump indirectly endangered the source.
That in itself is a high crime and misdemeanor.
6
Trump has repeatedly proven to be untrustworthy. Of course he has undermined U.S. intelligence capabilities again and again. No less has he undercut our diplomats, our military leaders, our scientists, our justice, judiciary, and law enforcement officials, our state and local governments, our media, our congressional representatives from all parties, our international allies and treaty obligations, our environment, even our weather forecasters, our trading partners, our agriculture and farmers, and the future of generations to come. If not a Russian agent, he is worse. He is worse than a failing president, he is an all-around failure. Not one word that he says can be believed.
15
IT'S FRIGHTENING TO SAY THAT Trump is degrading US intelligence gathering. There are actually pictures of him entertaining foreign persons who are avowed enemies of the US, such as top Russian officials being hosted in the Oval Office, where it seems that Trump has given them access to highly classified documents, that may damage both the security of the US and our Allies. Such a situation is hardly surprising, as Trump has shown on YouTube video that he is incapable of reading. He has to have an assistant write out his tweets since he could not do it. How much space would it take him to write out his ideas with Sharpie. (Never mind Trump's Sharp-ie Attack on the Official Weather Map tracking Hurricane Dorian). Have you seen how huge his buttwipe signature is? It would take him about 10 pages of paper to scrawl out a 140 character tweet. That is if he could actually spell the words. For all these reasons, it is clear that Trump, having no idea of the importance of maintaining the security of written documents, has violated US security laws. In fact, it could be argued, and proven, that by showing secret documents to US enemies, Trump is perpetrating high crimes and misdemeanors. He falls short of being a traitor only because we have no war declared against our enemies! And have not had a declared war since the Korean War. Meaning that the category of traitor is in urgent need of an update of the definition. Russia, China and N Korea always make cyber warfare on US!
7
It's a sad state of affairs when the Commander in Chief can't be trusted with the secrets he needs to carry out his duties. What the world needs is a paradigm shift in human thought so that people like Trump won't be elected in the first place. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is important and what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for dirty tricks and destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
Mr. Trump’s intelligence leaks are old news. And his role in the recent matter, as Ms. Goldberg states, is unknown. But it is a great time to be talking about undercover espionage. Did anybody notice that the Russians had elections this.weekend? Wouldn’t it be fun to speculate about all the CIA’s dirty tricks?
1
All one has to do is read and research. Trump has not done one positive thing for the people of America. If he is not a Russian asset then who is he working for? Not us, that's for sure. This is not normal people.
11
I'm not convinced Trump does these things by mistake. He does it openly and the press runs with it like it's another bumbling mistake. Think of all the things he has done to this country. There is a very real purpose behind all of it. Line his own pockets and destroy this country. Just like Putin and China want.
7
If this were just a few years prior, we'd have seen this guy weaving intelligence secrets into his rally performances while his supporters chanted "lock her up" over an email server.
It appears that Donald Trump is trading sensitive information for personal reasons, whether to ingratiate himself with his dictatorial idols, massage his own ego, or worse.
The damage he is doing to the country is impossible to fully know, but what is knowable is that he’s using the presidency as his own personal piggy bank, making regular withdrawals of all sorts to feather his own nest, stroke his self-esteem and ingratiate himself with autocrats and dictators.
My theory is that he sees countries like Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and others as fertile, undeveloped ground for future, self-enriching Trump projects after he leaves the presidency, for which his policies and support are mere down payments made at America’s expense.
Trump is in the big time now, and he’s playing for keeps. That he’s bargaining away our country’s national security and long-standing relationships with its allies is no longer a question.
The only question is how long he will get away with it.
9
Make some wonder just exactly what trump says to Putin in those closed door sessions. Because of his need to show how SMART he is he will blabber about things which he doesn't understand in the most inarticulate way.
This maybe a good time to subpoena the notes of his Putin Meeting
6
It is difficult to determine if Trump is a foreign asset or just a garden variety dupe.
Since the United States would probably not execute someone for being ignorant, I would suggest that a careful discussion take place regarding President Trump’s ability to build a large corporation and his success in attaining the highest office in our country.
Michelle Goldberg did an excellent job detailing Trumps seemingly clueless revealing of national secrets.
Many will ask how a president could be so reckless and unpatriotic.
Donald Trump is the President of The United States of America and as such he is the last person in this country who should be working against the interests of our democracy in concert with foreign dictators.
If one life has been lost as a result of Trumps activities, I believe that President Donald Trump should be tried for treason and dealt with accordingly.
I believe that if a president was convicted of treason, that president should pay the ultimate price.
9
Not a Trump supporter at all, and I realise you could've written this based on the CNN reporting on the matter, but your own paper states that there's no indication that Trump was the reason the source was extracted. See the article in the NY Times about this. I don't think it's a good thing for people to make stuff just because he's a disaster.
Perhaps you went by what CNN reported in which case it was a mistake and you could admit it. But otherwise I don't see the reason to not be honest WRT Trump since there's so much to go on. I think in difficult times, it is an even more important to retain your integrity and be scrupulous.
2
We would not be in this mess if we required a security clearance before an individual could be on the Presidential ballot. There is no way Donald Trump could have received even the lowest clearance.
992
@M. McCoy for a moment I agreed with you, but putting a requirement like this into the Constitution gives the current President too much ability to say who can or cannot be President next.
28
@M. McCoy
You don't have to look at the circle protecting and abetting Trump too carefully to know anyone can be bought. Especially extremely wealthy individuals who got there by stomping on their fellow man.
62
@M. McCoy
A security clearance requirement may be a good idea. An even better idea would be to require all candidates to take that test which is given to immigrants when they apply for citizenship. Trump is an idiot and this sort of test would have weeded him out long ago.
42
I share the author's concerns about Trump and his careless handling of classified intelligence. However, she implies that media disclosure of classified information relating to this source would have been (and was) less troublesome. In terms of the American interests at stake in this instance, I think both the President and the media appear culpable.
17
@DBW
It is more than carelessness on Trump's part. He is more dangerous, as he has the Nuclear Code in his hands. They need to take that away from him.
36
@Clearheaded
Is it normal for the news media to have these names? It seems to me once a secret is out, it’s out, and no longer a secret.
@DBW We wouldn’t even know about how our intelligence is being compromised and shared by this poor excuse for a leader, if it weren’t for journalists. I feel safer with them than I do the Trump/Kushners currying favor by sharing our secrets.
29
Vladimir Putin's BEST asset sits behind the Resolute Desk. It's not just corruption by Trump (and it is that), it's treason, betrayal of our nation's security at the highest possible level. The Constitution DEMANDS we Impeach a President for Treason:
Art II, section 4:
"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, TREASON, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. "
Art III, section 3 defines treason:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, OR IN ADHERING TO THEIR ENEMIES, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. "
Since Vladimir Putin personally directed attacks on our elections, that is, under virtually every international definition, an ACT OF WAR!
So Donald Trump has directly committed Treason as defined by the Constitution of the United States, and that demands Impeachment and removal.
23
"It’s sometimes lost amid Donald Trump’s endless affronts to the Republic, but the undermining of American intelligence capabilities is one of the overarching stories of his administration."
--opening sentence of Michelle Goldberg's column
Finally. For once, the key danger posed by the Great American Presidential Experiment serves as the lead for a column or article.
Since DFT (not a typo) first began beating the drum for Putin and Russia during the run-up to the 2016 election, I've been expending much wasted breath trying to get people I talk with to understand that this - THIS - is the red flag of red flags. I was shouting "Fire" (because there WAS a fire) in a crowded theater, and everybody just kept watching the movie. (Guess how that turned out?)
Gradually, I've come to register the fact that my own background, education, and experience were the only reason I saw things differently from those who ignored me. And it hit me: People who aren't trained to recognize certain patterns and connections won't necessarily see them, or even pay attention when those patterns and connections are pointed out and walked through from point to connecting point.
Talk about a clear and present danger: the American electorate is no better capable of recognizing a danger like DFT than a nursery full of babies.
How did we let things get to this point?
What can be done to change it?
Or will this be our new normal?
15
@DameAlys
Yes, the problem isn't just DFT. The problem that will remain after he is hopefully gone is the persistently large portion of the population that is significantly lacking in critical thinking skills, and primed for hatefulness by the affirmations provided by Rupert Murdoch and his ilk. I really don't know if DFT is like Hitler. But I am certain that the scared, angry, scapegoat-seeking Americans supporting Trump are the same scared, angry, scapegoat-seeking profile of the Germans who supported Hitler. And i do not know how to fix that.
2
When the world witnesses the Democrats being duly elected in numbers enough to take the Senate, House and Presidency and then stacks the Supreme Court and the Federal Courts, ends the filibuster, repeals Citizens United, bans private money in politics, restores the Voting Rights Act, passes a law against every norm broken by the GOP and Trump, brings back Fairness Doctrine, bans foreign born ownership of media outlets, enacts a progressive tax regime equal to the vaunted 50's era and prosecutes Trump after he's driven from office, maybe then our allies will have enough trust to share their national secrets with the U.S. once again.
684
Unfortunately not enough. It will take at least a decade for trust to come back. 2 terms and more of responsable government.
The bill for all those things that don't work is pretty big.
59
@Anam Cara-That is quite a list. I'll bet Jared K. could have that done by lunchtime. HaHa.
26
@MH
As an engineer once remarked, it takes far longer to fix damage than it did to cause it.
62
The CIA must itself have been the source of the news stories that appeared about the existence of the Russian source, and what he said about Putin's having ordered the election meddling. This story was used as part of the Russiagate scandal, and drove home the claim that Russia/Putin is the reason Trump was elected. The source in Russia, who could have continued to be valuable for US intelligence, was sacrificed for the running domestic battles in the US about the legitimacy of Trump's election.
3
Could this be a “Mad as a Hatter” Mercury related issue? Frequent exposure can lead to a variety of physical and mental ailments, including tremors (dubbed “hatter’s shakes”), speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations.
3
Michele, I am a cultural Jew. I grew up in the aftermath of what humans did to other humans in ww2. Never again and evil can be done on a large scale by any of us. That has been my take away for decade after decade. Other than using my vote I am at a loss as to what to do. Bill Maher is our therapeutic escape. When I mention to my wife that we need a sign in our yard, something that expresses reason over zealousness, unity over division, and that the free press is not our enemy. I don’t know of such a sign and my wife is frightened for me to do such a thing. We watch some of the many ww2 era dramas on tv and the parallels are haunting. This too will pass? Or, not?
42
@william phillips
Silence is consent!
2
Remember in 2017 when Britain stopped sharing intelligence with the US about the Manchester bombing because of leaked information from American officials? That after the furor around Trump revealing top secret information to Russia in that infamous meeting in the Oval Office? And that was two years ago. What damage has been done since?
The Five Eyes needs to become the Four Eyes - like, yesterday.
45
Referencing Adam Schiff's quote in this article, Trump's "inexplicable fondness" for despots". My answer is money, which in Trump's mind equates to power. Money is a funny thing, some people can not get enough of it in order to feel satisfied. Trump is fixated on money and grandiosity. And who is one of the richest people in the world, Putin (around $80 billion). Trump is talking about another term after 2024 (like he can defy death), which is despot talk. Despots can acquire vast amounts of wealth, which leads back to Trump's fondness for them.
49
@SLF
It's well established that Trump has the three poisons of the soul, Greed, Hatred and Ignorance.
3
Trump certainly has done business and sold real estate to questionable Russians here in the US to the point, according to Don Jr., of using their money to finance real estate projects.
The question in our former game show host president's mind might be, which comes first, national interest or Trump Inc.
14
@dsmith
''The question in our former game show host president's mind might be, which comes first, national interest or Trump Inc.''
Surely you jest! Scarcely a day has passed since the inauguration that Trump has not used the oval office to advance his personal interests.
The latest episode is the debacle of Pence in Scotland. And every effort is being made to have the next G7 at Doral.
Personally, I think the two hundred odd millions that have been spent to ferry him to one of his golf clubs could be put to better use. Fat chance of his reimbursing the government. Fatter chance of his actually even considering the national interest.
27
@dsmith I'm willing to bet a week's pay that this question has never occurred to Benedict Donald. The only reason that the idea of the national interest would occur to Trump would be in the context of feigning an interest in the good of the nation in order to further his own ends.
3
@dsmith
There is no question in our former game show host president's mind of which comes first.
It's Trump. Always.
5
Remember when conservatives, in a great show of patriotic bravado, claimed that Bill Clinton couldn't pass a security clearance because, as a 23 year old student, he had visited the U.S.S.R.?
Is a change in the President a requirement for Republicans to care about national security again?
86
Having extracted the agent, the CIA has lost a window into the Kremlin. Therefore Trump must be relieved that his pal Putin's shenanigans won't be quite as visible as before. Trump - going forward - now has more deniability re future Putin meddling on his behalf.
38
This is so much bigger than just our Pres. Remember Mueller's "even as we sit here," statement about Russian interference during the hearings. I believe he meant that quite literally, that it was happening even during the hearings, that he was surrounded by Russian assets... Our democracy has been hacked.
92
@sue denim
In 2016, there was definitive evidence that at least 22 state's electoral systems were hacked by Russians. Given that virtually nothing as changed since then, it's logically acceptable that our electoral systems will be hacked on a broader scale in 2020. While is currently is no evidence that any votes were counted incorrectly (nor will there ever be, given there are no paper backups for any votes made - it's all electronic), one should always understand that a bank robber doesn't just walk into the bank to rob - if one wants to get away afterwards. The robber always analyzes the bank first, then robs it blind at a later stage.
As an infamous leader was once known to have said (ironic that it was Lenin), "It's not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes."
We have a system with no paper backups now - no independent way for counting votes afterwards. Presently, if a recount is ordered, almost all states simply ask the computer to provide the numeration of vote counts again.
This has to change - and NOW. Otherwise, we can never trust the outcome. For those who don't like democracy, this may be what they want.
4
It's true that the official line from the CIA is that stories about Russian election interference prompted the extraction of their source. Our intelligence agencies MUST take this line. But, bolstered by anonymous leaks, reasonable people credibly suspect that Trump's willingness to carelessly divulge classified information played at least a part in the decision. That this is a reasonable suspicion is, by itself, enough to cause permanent damage to our covert operations not least because, as noted by James Clapper, this is “going to make recruiting assets in Russia even more difficult than it already is.”
27
Once Trump gets asylum in Russia he will not only escape US justice, but will also be the most incredible classified data source in intelligence history.
51
@dAvid W I may be wrong here, but I think intelligence agencies prefer that their sources have 1) some idea what they're talking about and 2) some contact with objective reality. I'm not sure the Russian intelligence apparatus would accept that Trump meets these criteria.
4
@dAvid W. And you really think that the Russians will believe everything that comes out of tRump’s mouth? What will they believe if he has a sharpie? Russia might wind up sending provocateurs to Greenland to undermine their US governance.
2
@dAvid W. Not to worry. Trump can barely remember his own name.
1
“The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone. “ Indeed, But the USA has also shown that it has produced a party and powerful media organizations (and a reliable 40% of its population) that will defend Trump no matter how many norms and laws he tramples upon.
So, even if Trump loses, the USA will not recover its reputation and its soft power so long as the amoral right runs or wields real influence in the Senate, at Fox News and on talk radio, and beyond. In short, the future of the republic depends on not only defeating Trump but on making his political and media enablers politically radioactive. Removing Trump while allowing the enablers to retain their reputations and their influence will do nothing but clear the path for the next Trump. The idea of President Don Jr, or President Ivanka or President Stephen Miller or President Sean Hannity might seem like a joke today. But that’s what Trump seemed like when he came down the escalator and began his White House run.
106
@Mike
I am no fan of the Fox network, but it looks like its news arm is becoming a far less reliable ally as Trump's public circus ring expands.
As far as their opinion/entertainment arm, that is another matter. They would be happy to expand the number of circus rings.
13
@Mike....Sadly you are exactly right!!..We really have to end the Electoral College to prevent a repeat of the Minority prevailing and ruling over the Majority !!
1
JSK, my wife has been talking about the Fox break with Trump. What’s up with Rupert?
I'm sorry, but there's still too many people giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. It needs to be universally acknowledged it's not natural behavior to protect our predators at the risk of our own existence.
Trump has to believe it's in his interest to protect Putin and Russia regardless of the consequences for America. Or he wouldn't be acting this way.
73
This should be no surprise coming from a reality TV guy who thinks that any publicity is good publicity and would help his ratings. It does not matter that this chosen route may not work-- and in fact may do all sorts of damage--as long as he gets his personal fix of public attention.
The only thing we cannot know, but can suspect, is that he would reflexively lie about any classified information he releases. His mendacity would not likely mitigate any damage he does.
Is our president guilty of disinformation campaigns on all sides? We have to consider the possibility. He probably has no filter on anything he blurts other than what he wants to believe at the moment.
22
The Daily Telegraph, Britain's most pro-American newspaper, had an interesting comment in January 2017 asking whether it was Trump himself or America in general. I've come to the sad but necessary conclusion that it is America -- this has been building since the end of the Reagan era and the abolition of the fairness doctrine, maybe the rise of Newt Gingrich, who knows -- I do know that this will be studied to death in the following years and maybe a definitive conclusion will be reached but after living in the USA for 32 years, I'm not holding my breath (still arguing about FDR!).
27
Wait until Trump gets crushed in the next election. He will then have almost three months to exact revenge on us all and our institutions.
As I said when he was elected, I’m not worried about his election, I’m worried about when he’s told to leave.
109
@galtsgultch
What will the base do then?
3
@Mike Westfall
What do WE do then?
2
@galtsgultch
The first line of your comment reflects the kind of naivete that got Trump elected in the first place. You guys have it in the bag, right?
Why can't Democrats learn from their mistakes?
The “wait on impeachment gambit” has to succeed. As Speaker Pelosi has said we need to trust in our ability to overcome trump and his backers at the ballot box; anything short of that...even impeachment...won’t do the trick to the extant necessary that will provide a clear way forward for the next elected democratic president, backed by a democratic majority in BOTH houses of Congress, to restore our federal government to full operational efficiency and effectiveness.
The next president and Congress will have the most significant opportunity to revitalize our country since FDR. Let’s all do our parts to help make that possible.
41
Do the Trumpettes care about America, the world at large, or are they merely entranced by the reality TV sideshow playing in everyone's living rooms.
They forget or fail to acknowledge that we are all on the same rock hurtling through space.
29
@James Siegel
"Do the Trumpettes care about America, the world at large, or are they merely entranced by the reality TV sideshow playing in everyone's living rooms. "
No, they don't care about America. They care about their long simmering resentments against people of color, people that are smarter and more successful than they are, and people who base their world view on facts and reality.
3
I’d like to invite you to think about all of the top-secret information Mr. Trump is privy to now. Imagine how he will monetize it once he leaves office and his oath behind him. We are all in very real danger.
162
@Richard Barry-
I doubt they’re telling him anything important. They might even be giving Trump false information hoping that Arnold will pass it on to his Kremlin friend.
6
@Richard Barry One hopes that state level prosecutions overwhelm his time and resources and result in conviction and incarceration.
3
@Richard Barry
Hopefully his dementia is too advanced for him to remember and act on it.
2
Imagine. The President of the United States can’t be trusted by his own national security council and agencies because they believe him to be an “asset of a hostile foreign power”; a Russian intelligence asset.
Imagine.
Imagine.
105
Indeed a most important point: trust, once compromised, is very hard to rebuild. In Holland we say that it arrives on foot and flees on horseback.
This is not only a matter for intelligence sharing, but very generally about treaties, which seem no safer today than the historical treaties the US government made with the peoples originally living in the continent.
64
Presidents continue to receive daily briefings for years after they leave office. Trump’s cavalier treatment of sensitive information will continue long after he is no longer in office.
This is yet another reason to hold impeachment proceedings so that his many infractions can result in removal from the daily briefing list. He needs to be held accountable so that his continuing damage ceases upon the end of his term or his removal from office.
112
@dmaurici Do you think the briefings will take place in Trump's jail cell?
2
"I know something you don't know." Often, chanted to taunt another, it's a game we were all raised with. It happens in the "adult" world far more than it should, even in the security world. A subject comes up unguarded in a conversation, someone gives a knowing smile, and the guessing begins. If handled properly, the game is shut down by an adult, or adults, in the room. Unfortunately, there are no adults in White House rooms.
70
Yet another indication that while it is Trump who is hurting our country, he was the choice of millions of other Americans. Even when Trump is gone--none too soon for so many reasons--the consequences resulting from so many supporting him could harm us for years. It may be understandable why he was supported in 2016 but now? After so many instances like those described in this column? Unimaginable even to a conservative like me.
96
@jeff
Given that Trump was elected by millions of US voters, as bad as he is for the Country (and he is very bad for the Country), the real threat to the Country was, is and will be those who support Trump. Their political views are based upon hate, conspiracy theories and lies. Trump knows how to trigger their worst impulses. What will they do if he is not re-elected? Who will be the next Presidential Candidate, Senate and House Candidates they support, and will the rest of us be passive enough to allow this travesty to be repeated?
4
I'm curious; how will the rest of the world see us after the 2020 election? Assume for instance we elect a new president to replace Trump. How will these intelligence sharing relationships improve? Trust, especially in the international domain, is like a wine glass. When dropped and cracked, then glued back together, will never be the same as before. The fact that President of the United States is so undeterred to protect the security of American and allied foreign intelligence poses a greater risk to the longevity and security of our country more than anything else. Another 4 years of this could also prove detrimental to the United States' standing on the world stage.
54
@Justin • the breaking of laws is like the breaking of bones - painful, but they can usually be restored quickly and sometimes are stronger after the break than before. Without question, Trump has broken laws. But The shredding of presidential norms, Trumps speciality, is different. Norms are like ligaments and tendons, they have necessarily a certain amount of give and flexibility. But once they are stretched and shredded, they do not snap back together quickly if at all. Sometimes it is a life sentence and they never heal.
42
@Justin
Retired Intelligence Director Michael Hayden has said that the US can handle 4 years of damage from Trump, but not 8 (meaning that it would be irreparable.)
2
@avrds, Pelosi walks a fine line. While she has made it perfectly clear she considers Trump a criminal, (her imprison versus impeach comment comes to mind), she is very aware of the risks of forcing a constitutional crisis in a country that is already extremely divided and increasingly violent in public spaces.
She has said many times that she wants to have sufficient public support for impeachment before she pursues it. For all of her detractors who accuse her of being a “left coast elitist” who lives in the “coastal bubble”, she seems to be taking “flyover country” into account.
While Trump’s corruption and inability to lead with integrity or concern for the future may be obvious to many NYT readers, it is not so for many other Americans. Nixon did not resign until public opinion was against him enough to make it politically untenable for him to stay. When he resigned, Gerry Ford was sworn in peacefully and took his own political poison pill when he pardoned Nixon for the betterment of the country. He has since been lauded for that action, as it allowed the country to move on, but he lost the election for president because of it.
I don’t know when the political scales will tip, but I’m also hoping it’s sooner rather than later. It’s clear that Trump won’t leave of his own accord.
83
@Jane K
You are right. Trump will not leave of his own accord, and I fear that even if he is forced to, he will rebel against it. One of the reasons he sought the presidency was due to his humiliation at the Press Corps dinner by Obama. If he is similarly humiliated he will retaliate in a most obstreperous way.
4
@Jane K
No pardon for Trump. Only prosecution for every single offense.
2
I read the article but I still can't believe my eyes. How could any of this happen? Are we all collectively stuck in a twilight zone?
138
All of the last three presidents have disappointed in the intelligence department. Bush used bad intel in Iraq, patriot act. Obama said civil liberties could be respected while satisfying government agencies demands for intel but villified Snowden for exposing the opposite in practice during his administration. Trump is picking up where Obama and Bush left off.
2
@ialbrighton The examples are hardly comparable. Obvious attempt to try to normalize Trump's behavior.
87
@Craig Freedman actually according to one tally the count was over a million in Iraq. Maybe I didn't make that clear. I was talking about the phantom WMD's that the Bush admin used to persuade the public about the necessity of the invasion. Often we draw conclusions on the most readily available information so the examples of Trump's errors sound terrible and they are but unfortunately there are even more saddening events within recent memory. Not that I am an expert on intelligence issues.
3
@Craig Freedman and yet I voted for Hillary and actually live in the US. Trump's incompetence has not led to the invasion of a country yet. Over 500,000 Iraqis were killed. Over 500,000.
1
Mr. Trump has Sharpied out another line of his Constitutional job description, the part about protecting against all enemies foreign and domestic.
It's a real tribute to their professionalism and respect for traditional U.S. values that a rogue individual or group in these agencies hasn't taken it upon itself to eliminate the Trump problem, a la the films of Oliver Stone or books by David Baldacci and Ken Follet.
49
Another step by the POTUS in destroying the trust that allies once had in the Presidency and the USA. When a country's intelligence community has to extract an asset because that same country's Head of State cannot be trusted not to put that asset into grave danger is simply mind-boggling.
The question needs to be asked "If this man was not the President would he be given security clearance of any kind?" If the answer is in the negative then it is up to the people to act at the next election unless, of course, he is removed from Office prior to that event. I only hope the people will not be found wanting when the time comes.
58
If this man weren’t President he would be in jail already for unauthorized intelligence leaks. And someone like Donald Trump would be the first to put him there!
1
"Former intelligence officials" may have stated there's "no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source". However, the word "directly" isn't the only problem with that sentence. Former intelligence officials were heavily downplaying the damage Trump's done. They deliberately chose the words "no public evidence" knowing it's precisely the kind of evidence never to be associated with intelligence operations, which are about concealing evidence from the public.
The only way "evidence" that "Trump directly endangered" our top intelligence asset in Russia could have become publicly evident is if the person was publicly assassinated by Putin. As it is, Trump placed America's highest ranking intelligence asset in Russia in such imminent danger of being murdered that they had to be exfiltrated.
It does immediately bring to mind Trump revealing to Russia classified intelligence about ISIS which endangered "the most valuable source of information on external plotting by Islamic State".
Finally, you're overly optimistic in writing "the possibility that Trump jeopardized America’s most important intelligence asset in Russia should be a very big deal, though I'm not sure it will be".
At this point, Trump could give Putin our nuclear codes and almost every Republican would blame the media while insisting there's no "public evidence" that Trump endangered America because none of our nuclear warheads had yet been redirected to American cities and launched by Putin.
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@Robert B Pay attention to the news for the next few days. Trump will have another hissy fit and demand firings in the CIA for this "no direct evidence" that the president's loud mouth had endangered our source in the Kremlin.
2
Let's not be afraid of reading between the lines. The spy was exfiltrated, because CIA assessed that Donald Trump would get him or her killed. Everything we know about Trump indicates that he is not above doing such a thing, intentionally or unintentionally.
288
One sad thing about the attitude towards continued secrecy at this point.
We don’t need to know the name the former agent is living under, nor where, but the name s/he had in Russia is important to history.
Putin learned the agent’s name as soon as a top-level operative vanished.
The man may be a violent, amoral Russian patriot who has proven over and over he can figure out what’s happened when data and a top-ranked officer go missing on the same day.
The government knows the name - the CIA recruited, ran and removed the agent.
The ONLY people who don’t are millions of Americans who want to see the agent get the highest honor Congress can give a civilian.
Not the White House - somehow I wouldn’t want the agent
2
In an attempt to make sense of the trump situation I have dedicated serious research into the matter,
Results thus far:
Banging one's head repeatedly on the kitchen counter is unlikely to bring enlightenment
64
I'm no fan of Trump, but for all the trillions the US has spent on intelligence gathering, what good has come of it? It wasn't able to stop the 9/11 attacks. It caught a whiff of Russian election interference in 2016 but too late to do anything about it.
Specifically with respect to Russia, what covert information do we really need to know that's not out there in plain sight? We know Putin in an autocratic thug who likes to stir the pot. Unless we plan on going to war, all this covert information is useless other than to keep a lot of people employed in northern Virginia.
6
@Matthew O
The New York Times reported shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, that warnings had been issued but we're ignored. The men and women of the Intelligence agencies risk their lives obtaining information that is vital to our security.
90
@Matthew Intelligence analysis is often flawed (see Iraq WMD), but having no human intelligence on the ground is fatal--see 9/11, when we had no human intelligence sources in Afghanistan and thus we had no clue what al Qaeda was planning or where bin Laden was.
24
@Matthew O "What covert information do we really need to know that's not out there in plain sight?" If it were in plain sight it would not be covert, for one. For another, the other side doesn't put out in plain sight things it doesn't want us to see; it's those things we most need to know in order to protect ourselves and our interests. For somebody who lives in the Navy town of San Diego I'm appalled you have such a flippant view of national security.
39
trump has brought this country down so far in so short a time that it's astonishing. We are distrusted by our allies, and of course they despise trump as millions of us do here. trump aligns himself with Saudi Arabia and Russia and freely praises other dictators as well. But you can see at first glance he dislikes all representatives of our traditional allied countries. If trump gets re-elected our chances for coming back as a respectable country are definitely under threat. As the article points out so importantly, a country that could elect such a repulsive human being is not a country that can be included in the ranks of intelligent and respectable allies.
151
Trump's actions sure sound like treason. He is supposed to : "protect and defend the Constitution," but defended Putin in Helsinki. The subs and satellites are assets all of us have paid for, and those were also compromised. At some point, not calling him out on this may be considered moral treason.
206
If we want to mislead the Kremlin about anything, like some strategic NATO plans, the CIA can feed some misinformation to Trump, some tempting morsel that Russia would be likely to react to.
Then sit back and watch what happens. The best intelligence assets are the ones who don't know they are.
51
What is evident in our present daily state of chaos, is that the system devised by the good intentioned patriots of the 18TH century needs to be reengineered. The rule that a civil servant must pass an FBI investigation, in order to gain the right to have a security clerance, and at the same time the president is not required to provide evidence of his past credit history and income tax, is beyond the surreal.
190
@Consiglieri
Let's not forget that the DOJ also has a rule stating that the President cannot be charged with a crime while in office, even if he/she has committed one, or many. Getting rid of this DOJ "rule" should be high on the list of things which need to be changed.
17
@Consiglieri
While we are at it let's rid ourselves of the ridiculous ruling that a sitting president can not be indicted. Absurd.
2
Today, while taking in the news and the latest travesties/outrages by Orange Julius Caesar, one of the stories included a clip of Barack Obama explaining how NOAA came to be under the aegis of the Commerce department. It was a minor thing of no particular importance, but I found my eyes filling with tears as I watched a *real* president address the American people.
When I look at that charlatan in the oval office I don't see a corrupt president, because I don't see a president at all. Trump has exactly zero of the qualities needed to preside over, well... anything. He's spot on for being a tyrant, dictator, or overseer. President? No.
God save us all if he gets re-elected or retains his office in some other way -- and doesn't it speak volumes about where we're at when we worry about the 'president' retaining his office in ways other than an electoral win?
Tears.
316
@Art Likely If he gets re-elected, then it's time to leave the country because it is the country that will be rotten. The spread of rot has a chance to be abated in 2020 and hopefully there are enough moderates and independents that will cast a vote for our values and our democracy. Then the healing can begin. Four more years of Trump and the Trumpist party will alter the country to the point of no return.
18
@Art Likely if 46-1 loses reelection, he'll most likely say that the system was rigged in some way and will challenge it with a vote recount because you know... #soreloser. I hope he does not win again. We need to go back to being a strong and respected country in the eyes of every other nation, not continue being a reality show.
9
@Art Likely my thoughts exactly - from th day after the election, it has been clear to these eyes, that he and his family and cronies ( he does not seem to have any "friends") are a threat to the America i want for my grand kids.
14
A unique combination of avarice, ignorance and financial dependence on Russian oligarchs has made our current president a massive security risk.
November of 2020 cannot come too soon.
251
@Edward B. Blau
Take a deep breath and relax. Trump will win again, as the opposition is nothing, but a collection of childish amateurs.
Given that it’s become a routine government function to hire staff, develop policies and design needless programs to make Donald Trump’ Lies seem true, it’s unsurprising that intelligence agencies are wary of his inability to stifle his boasts. What is surprising is that an American president isn’t trusted to the point he’s purposefully kept in the dark on matters of national security.
58
@walt amses
Congress is to blame for not restricting presedential power after Watergate. Only Congress can take action against the president. Presumably the Intelligence agencies are monitoring Trump because he is a proven security risk for revealing confidential information.
15
@Stan Current
congress does not have power to restrict presidential power.
1
@plainleaf
Of course Congress has the power to restrict presidential power. This Congress has simply chosen not to exercise its power in this regard.
5
Intelligence agencies vs Trump. Where have we seen that alleged? Oh yeah, it is the Trump theory of what has been happening.
It would be better not to declare he's right about that.
8
@Mark Thomason
The situations aren't comparable. It is a fact that Trump is careless about divulging info and the extraction of the source was a natural precaution. That hardly is the same as the conspiratorial nonsense that Trump exudes and doesn't come close to declaring that he's right.
3
@Mark Thomason Trust is something that is earned. Trump has not earned the trust of his intelligence officers. No law or code of conduct will force people to comply when they can reasonably assume this man is an idiot or a major security risk. Neither are good options. Did you see the map show? I rest my case.
3
It's easy to lose sight of these serious issues because the daily noise is so overwhelming, ranging from fake weather maps to cancelled secret Taliban meetings to the purchase of Greenland to the hundreds of military flights refueling at Prestwick -
The things we know about are so bad one is afraid to think what is going on that we don't know about.
343
@Sophia
Sophia, All you other noises you mentioned occurred in only the past two weeks.
At this point, I can't easily recall all the other noises that shocked me in the past 2.5 years (Ms. Goldberg reminded me of some of them).
I truly believe this is the MO of this president: Keep the media and the public reeling with some new noise every few days so people just throw up their hands and forget.
4
Service members heavily favored Trump in 2016, despite his spurious bone spurs, but they may be asked to fight and perhaps die during his tenure. Under Trump, not only is friend now foe and foe now friend, the American ideals which supposedly motivate our actions are a travesty, and the basic intelligence meant to protect our soldiers may be compromised. No wonder there's a photo of Trump in Putin's office with the caption "Employee of the Month".
116
Please tell me exactly what more needs to happen before this walking disaster is removed from office?
542
@HG Wells
Unfortunately we have a Speaker of the House who is more interested in her own personal power than upholding the Constitution.
The House needs to call for a general impeachment inquiry that provides investigators with the tools they need to get around Trump's refusal to turn over documents and allow witnesses to testify. Otherwise all this sneaking around, saying they are doing an inquiry into a potential inquiry of a potential impeachment, only serves to run out the clock and let the president continue to break laws, obstruct justice, falsify weather reports, and leak intelligence information at will.
They also need to get someone to start getting the message out about why this is so critically important to the nation.
It's easy to condemn the Republicans for not standing up to this president, but the Democratic leadership is just as complicit.
68
@avrds Anything the House does is irrelevant if the Senate does not act upon it. And the Senate Republicans have shown there is literally nothing Trump can do for them to remove him. Trump has had his Nixon moment over and over again and it hasn't changed the country's mind.
101
@Xiong Chiamiov But the House must perform it's constitutional duty despite the Senate's (McConnell's) refusal to hold a trial. History will be kind to this House and to Democrats for honoring their oath and impeaching Trump.
50
“The United States has shown the world that it is capable of putting someone like Trump in office, and that can’t be undone.” Now extend that from national intelligence to everything that the United States used to exert leadership on, around the globe: trade, economic policy, science, the environment, global health, humanitarian aid, and more. In three and one-half years, our reputation globally has been flushed down the toilet, not just because of Trump, but because an ignorant electorate could elevate him to power. Why should anyone outside the US ever think that it could never happen again?
170
@Ockham9-It only took 77+k votes to put Trump in office. He squeaked by with about 25% of voters' support, assisted by GOP malfeasance (vote suppression, gerrymandering, voter purging, dark money, etc. in key battleground states) and supercharged Russian interference voter-targeted with the help of Cambridge Analytica and Brad Parscale. This is the reality that needs to be rigorously addressed, especially in state's with insecure voting systems.
65
@Ann. I certainly agree with your comments about how Trump was elected, but the fact remains that nearly 63 million of our fellow Americans voted for an ignorant, bigoted, unqualified lout. And whatever structural help he had, that fact is a blot on the reputation of the United States.
3
One of the most important things a president can do for his country is to give us a sense of security and that a responsible person is in charge. In this regard President Trump is a complete failure. He won the presidency by attacking our voting system and trying to establish the presence of a 'deep state' which included our intelligence net work and declaring that he would destroy it. How can this man who caters only to the elements of discord in everything he says and does ever give our country or our allies a sense that we can ever be trusted. Trump has ridden Reagan's statement that government is the problem and has expanded on it to the point that our government itself is at risk to their self fulfilling prophesy.
53
We will look back at Trump someday and ask ourselves: how did this happen? What was it in our character, our judgment, our self view, which caused us to elect this man as president?
Almost every day, another column about some horrendous decision, action, statement by Trump. Then, from the other side of the spectrum, silence or, at best, a muted endorsement. An occasional protest.
None of this is really about Trump. It's about who we are. Who are we? Are we Trump? Are we someone else? That is what we will decide in 14 short months.
182
@doug Character, judgement and our self view is developed over many years. It's not going to change overnight. Our character as a country is not going to change. The EU, China, Russia, the Philippines, South American countries, the US are all up in arms to change the regime. It won't work. It's like an adolescent revolt... Some things will change a little, but basically the character will remain the same. I hope.
7
@doug
Trump is the epitome of the worst in us that most of us try to evolve from by not projecting our own infantile and tyrannical traits on those like Trump. He needs to be confronted as any of us need to be. Jung wasn't the first to warn us. Some 2,500 years ago, Lao Tzu wrote : "If you see something you dislike in someone, look within. In meditation, go deep. No fight. No blame. Don't take things to the hilt." Dreams of those we dislike may indicate that we need to see where we may be acting like them or could. The great mythologist Joseph Campbell reminded us how we're locked in a nursery room at the bottom of the sea. The more we become conscious of the worst in us, we're less likely to succumb. I'm blessed with grandchildren who'll put me In timeout if I act up. I wish we could do that with Trump but Congress has repeatedly failed to restrict presidential powers.
11
@doug
It's largely about lack of education (not schooling), including political, and the effect of social networks' snowballing effect in a democracy.
Unfortunately, that problme is shared beyond the US.
12
Change all the locks, combinations, and passwords after his one term is up.
329
LOL on passwords. As if Individual One uses any beyond phone unlock and Twitter.
There is the matter of his loyal sycophants, but without the intoxicating "of the President" on their new calling cards, I expect most will be jumping ship (But do change their passwords and keys).
9
We have all known people who simply cannot be trusted with a secret. Kids and adults alike understand that there are some individuals who don’t have the discipline to keep private knowledge as such.
Right now, a grown man with less restraint than the biggest blabbermouth any of us ever knew, is in the world’s most powerful office.
366
And what happens when he is no longer president, but still has knowledge of what was shared with him? What happens when he is no longer surrounded by white house aides who keep in out of trouble at least some of the time? What happens when someone else is president, and he has to go to greater lengths to stay in the eye of the media?
He and his family are one of the greatest security risk to our country and will be for decades to come.
1326
Exactly. Without impeachment and removal from office or a conviction (post presidency), won’t he have the option to receive classified briefings for the rest of his reckless life?? That in and of itself is reason to prosecute and convict.
277
@Leaving
I'm counting on the fact that Trump has the attention span of a gnat and thus isn't paying very close attention.
61
@Leaving Imagine the information he would be willing to give up in return for a permit to build a hotel in Moscow! Hopefully, he will be in a secure prison where he cannot share the things he knows. Short of that we will have to pray that we will be saved by his sieve-like memory that can't remember whether he has ever heard of a category 5 hurricane (when there have been 4 since he became President) or whether Dorian is likely to hit Alabama.
158
The US has shown it in its entirety is not to be trusted. OK, so we get a new president in 2020 perhaps. But even if we do, there will likely have been in excess of 60m US citizens who voted for the current occupant of the White House. And in the last three years, we have demonstrated to the world that the checks and balances, that we thought were in place to protect us, cannot be relied upon.
400
@Independent male True. But when you put it all in perspective, this has been a very odd (dysfunctional) 4 year period balanced against many, many years of relative stability and predictability. Now, if we elect Trump AGAIN for another 4 years, that may indeed indicate our country is losing its trustworthiness among world leaders. If we elect Trump again we're sealing our own unfortunate fate.
65
@Independent male Longer than just three years. I trace it to the GOP's willingness to do anything to gain the presidency in 1980, to Reagan's back-channel negotiation with Iran before his election and his belief in the magical thinking of trickle down, supply side, Laffer curve economics that we can always cut taxes with no detriment to our long term prospects. The GOP lost its soul, its credibility, a long time ago.
64
@alabreabreal
Yes, but the perception outside the US is that of the betrayed lover... years of stability do not justify one (period) of a complete, disastrous breach of trust....
Regaining that trust is going to be the number 1 job of the 2020 democratic (hopefully!!) administration.
11
Trump usually brags about the intelligence data he has access to, apparently to make himself look and feel more powerful. So he's a national and international security risk operating in plain sight.
But I wonder whether or not the Russian asset was beginning to hear some of the intelligence Trump wasn't bragging about and/or sharing, but rather slipping back to Putin -- i.e., what the US intelligence agencies knew about Putin and his regime because of the source.
This may explain why in the first instance the man refused to leave, but in the second instance he agreed. When you hear your own intelligence coming back to you within Russia it must give you second thoughts about staying.
Very scary thought that Donald Trump would trade such sensitive intelligence and put a man's life in danger, in essence, for promises of Russian loans and hotels sometime in the future.
505
@avrds
"....to make himself look and feel more powerful."
That statement should be pounded and pounded home 24/7. It's a short (voters love bumper sticker politics) but so true answer as to why Trump does anything.
12
@avrds Don't assume conspiracy where incompetence will suffice. A president who demonstrably can't be relied on to keep intelligence confidential + even one private unrecorded conversation with the Russian president (like the time Trump confiscated his translator's notes) = ALL of our intelligence assets in Russia taking on an unknowable risk of being exposed.
3
@Tom
I agree about incompetence, since I'm not one given to conspiracy theories. It's too hard to keep big secrets secret as even the president shows on a daily basis.
One analyst on t.v. said the source simply had aged out, and needed to be removed before he was removed by Putin. And that may be all it is.
But as prone as the President is to brag about all the secrets he is privy to, there are a few he has kept closely guarded -- e.g., what he talks about when he talks to Putin.
My guess is it has to do with future deals and loans and other moneyed interests, but he is surely giving Putin promises and/or something juicy in return. It would be odd if some of this hadn't reached the source in some form or another.
4
I fear that the world was at a juncture where it desperately needed US leadership on climate change and many other important issues, and we responded by electing Donald Trump. Now even our national weather service has been politicized. These are very dark days, and we still have a long way until next November. A long, long way.
731
Impeachment proceedings may be the only answer
10
@CV Danes 13 and 1/2 months.
5
And I am very concerned that Barr will call off the elections in 2020, on orders of the bigoted short fingered vulgarian and self proclaimed sexual predator in the Whitehouse.
1
It takes no imagination at all to visualize what would have happened if it had been a Democratic president who disclosed the classified secrets Trump has disclosed. Republicans would have exploded in shock and outrage, and I'd like to think Democrats would have joined them.
But for some reason, with Trump we have just become numb.
832
@Madeline Conant Madeline remember the Russians hacked the RNC as well. What leverage they gained from that has never been revealed. Who knows how compromised they are. Just look at Lindsey Graham's behavior... They have been silenced. Why is that?
194
@Tony Kirkland -- They have silenced themselves for 2 reasons: 1) Vengeful Trump; 2) they sold out the US to get the judges they want. And they sold out cheap.
27
Lindsey Graham's behavior and Mitch McConnell's behavior. Gee, I wonder what they might have in common.
30
It takes no imagination at all to visualize what would have happened if it had been a Democratic president who disclosed the classified secrets Trump has disclosed. Republicans would have exploded in shock and outrage, and I'd like to think Democrats would have joined them.
But for some reason, with Trump we have just become numb.
38
It's those last two sentences that some up just how far the reputation of the United States has fallen.
In the spy game, we've gone from being austere, subtle, and chillingly efficient when need be to being slipshod, garrulous, and clumsy. And those still around who could rein that in know they are likely to be fired, or at least sidelined, if they speak out or object.
The erosion of trust, both overt and clandestine, that has happened under the Orange watch will take a very long time to be rebuilt, if that is even possible.
241
@Glenn Ribotsky My guess is that the reputation of the US, while taking a hit with Trump as president, will be repaired...IF Trump is booted out in 2020. Trump's an anomaly. A 4 year total disaster. But he's so far out of the realm of everything the US has worked toward, and stood for, he will likely quickly be forgotten. UNLESS he's elected for another 4 years. If that happens, the rest of the world is understandably justified in concluding that the US is untrustworthy.
20
@alabreabreal Trump may be far out of the realm of what our country has worked for but he's entirely within the realm of what the GOP has worked for, that permanent one party state beholden to vast fortunes made generations ago and now wielded by some self-appointed aristocracy. Marginal income tax rates, capital gains tax rates, and estate tax rates are entirely too low.
30
@alabreabreal
They will trust Biden .
The US is forced to withdraw a key long-term intelligence asset from Russia. Meanwhile, Russia worked long and hard to install a US president like Trump, and in plain sight. Republicans and their wealthy enablers helped. So did US voters. It sure looks like Russia is winning, doesn't it?
1314
@Blue Moon I agree that Russia did an admirable job installing Trump and that the Republicans and their wealthy enablers helped. But the minority of US voters who voted for Trump were duped. I really don't think they had a clue who (or what) they were voting for other than a loud man who was 'telling it like it was'. I think they truly thought Trump was advocating (and would continue to advocate) for them.
106
@alabreabreal
Not sure I would be referring to the minority of US Trump voters in the past tense. They still do not have a clue who (or what) they will vote for in 2020 - except his name is Trump.
141
@alabreabreal I wish I could believe that the Trumpers were 'duped' but they haven't wavered a bit. Not when he stands with Putin over U.S. intel, or gushes his love and admiration of MbS and Kim Jon un. They just give up on what they used to believe and say, "I'm with Trump." How can it be so easy?!
151