The White House Just Responded to a Report Claiming Trump Divulged Classified Info to the Russians

“The story that came out tonight, as reported, is false.”

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Early Monday evening, national security adviser H.R. McMaster dismissed an explosive Washington Post report alleging that President Donald Trump shared highly classified information with Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak at a White House meeting on May 10.

“I was in the room. It didn’t happen,” McMaster said.

“There’s nothing the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people,” he added. “The story that came out tonight as reported is false. The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not discuss any military operations that were not already publicly known.”

The general said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was also in the room, and that Tillerson confirms the incident unfolded the same way.

The Post story did not ever say that “intelligence sources or methods” were discussed, but that Trump revealed tightly held secret information that was provided by a US partner, and that the revelation would likely allow Russian intelligence agents to determine intelligence sources and methods independently.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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