National Review writer Jim Geraghty in his "Morning Jolt" e-mail linked to a Yahoo! column and wrote "Raise your hand if you expected John Brennan, who President Obama appointed to head the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013, to offer a qualified defense of Trump" on sharing intelligence with the Russians. Brennan wasn't completely impressed, but he was far unhappier with the leakers, and by extension the media that spread their information:
“What I have found appalling is the number of leaks that have taken place over the last several months,” former CIA Director John Brennan said at the SALT conference in Las Vegas, the annual gathering of hedge-fund managers and other financiers. “This needs to be stopped.” Brennan was CIA director during President Obama’s second term, stepping down in January, when Mike Pompeo replaced him.
Brennan said Trump made a “serious mistake” when he reportedly shared sensitive intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in an Oval Office meeting in early May. But this mistake wasn’t sharing intelligence; it was violating the protocol for doing so. “I shared intelligence with the Russians when I was the director of the CIA,” Brennan said. “But you share that through intelligence channels, and you make sure you word it in such a way as to not reveal sources and methods. President Trump didn’t do that.”
Brennan said the press coverage of Trump’s impromptu intelligence reveal was “hyperbolic” and possibly more damaging than anything Trump revealed. “The damage that was done is what was leaked in the aftermath, what was put in the media. The real damage to national security is the leaks.” He suggested, without saying so explicitly, that news accounts revealed more sensitive information than Trump did.
“The real damage to national security is the leaks,” Brennan said. “These individuals who still stay within the government and are leaking this stuff to the press need to be brought to task.”
In The Washington Post, Mike Morell -- who was active director and deputy director of the CIA between 2010 and 2013 -- found good news and bad news in the Post story in a Wednesday commentary: Good that Trump is listening and paying attention to intelligence reports, and bad that he's so hard to manage in what he shares with foreign goverments. But he also goes after the leakers:
Third, the leaks that led to The Post’s article on the issue have made matters worse. The Post relied on multiple sources, who leaked not only the idea that Trump had shared sensitive information with Lavrov but also many of the details of that information. Because of the leaks, the Russians now know the extreme sensitivity of the information. Because of the leaks, other governments now know what happened and may be recalculating their sharing with us. And, because of the leaks, the Islamic State may now be narrowing its search for the source or method of the intelligence on its attack plans.
Trump, who as president has the ultimate authority in the executive branch to declassify intelligence information, did not commit a crime when he shared sensitive information with the Russians. But the leakers did commit a crime, and they should be held accountable.
The country deserves a president who is going to do the hard work to master the job. But the president and, more important, the country deserve more balanced and nuanced commentary on how he and his administration are doing.
Morell has been a regular analyst on CBS This Morning. It would be nice to see him make this point on CBS, but how attentive are the networks to condemnations of leakers, who are usually their heroes (or at least their helpers)?
