Dem senator: ‘One of our closest allies’ expressed concern about intelligence sharing

A Democratic senator said “one of our closest allies” has expressed concerns to her about sharing intelligence with the United States, after a report that President Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats.

“This is an issue that has been raised with me recently by a high-ranking official of one of our closest allies about whether their country could count on information that was shared with us with being kept secret,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Shaheen was asking Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats how Trump’s reported actions in a meeting earlier this month affect U.S. intelligence sharing agreements with other countries.

{mosads}Trump reportedly told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak “code-word information” related to an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) plot. The information reportedly came to the United States from Israel.

Trump on Monday denied mentioning Israel in that meeting, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintained during a joint appearance with Trump that the intelligence relationship between the two countries remains strong.

Reports about Trump’s disclosure to the Russians do not allege that he explicitly named Israel, but said that Russia could have gleaned the source from what Trump revealed.

The incident has raised concerns among critics that allies could curtail their intelligence sharing with the United States.

In response to Shaheen, Coats spoke about the importance of intelligence sharing.

Asked by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) whether Trump’s disclosure could harm intelligence-sharing relationships, Coats said he has “not seen any evidence of that.”

“I have not seen any evidence of that or any reporting relative to anything that would lead to that conclusion,” he said.

In response to a question from Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on whether it was dangerous for Trump to share the information, Coats said he wasn’t in the room and so doesn’t know what was said.

He hasn’t discussed the issue with Trump yet, he said, because the president has been traveling.

When Heinrich said he found that “troubling,” Coats responded, “Well, I was in Europe and he was in the White House.” 

Coats also said he is “not aware” of whether Trump followed the interagency process on deciding whether to declassify intelligence before Trump shared the information with the Russians.