Allies May Stop Sharing Intel With US After Claims Trump Shared Secret Info

Foreign countries that share intelligence with the United States might pause doing so after US President Donald Trump reportedly revealed highly classified intelligence to Russian officials during a meeting in the Oval Office last week, former acting CIA Director Mike Morell said in an interview on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Monday, the Washington Post reported that Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak information about a terror threat involving laptops on airplanes that originally came from a US partner through an intelligence-sharing agreement.

"Foreign countries share intelligence with the United States regularly, and now they're going to take pause and question whether they should do that if they're afraid the information they're providing could be shared with an adversary of ours and theirs," Morell told CBS.

Following the media reports, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster stressed that Trump has not revealed any intelligence sources in the conversation at the White House last week. The officials spoke about threats from terrorist organizations, including threats to aviation, McMaster emphasized.

Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell in a statement refuted the media claims and called the story "false." Later, Trump himself took to Twitter and said that he had every right to share information on terrorism and the safety of flights with Russian officials.

Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov echoed the sentiment, calling the allegations that Trump shared secret information with Russian officials "absurd."