Israeli intelligence officers are “boiling mad and demanding answers” after President Trump reportedly shared classified information from Israel with Russia, according to a new report.
Two Israeli intelligence officers confirmed to BuzzFeed Tuesday that Israel had shared specific intelligence with the U.S. about Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) plots to smuggle explosive laptops onto planes.
“We have an arrangement with America which is unique to the world of intelligence sharing,” one intelligence officer told BuzzFeed. “We do not have this relationship with any other country.”
“To know that this intelligence is shared with others, without our prior knowledge? That is, for us, our worst fears confirmed,” the officer added.
{mosads}The New York Times on Monday reported that the highly classified information Trump revealed to top Russian officials came from Israel, which it said was confirmed by one current and one former official familiar with U.S. intelligence gathering.
The newspaper reported that the information Trump shared during a recent White House meeting concerned a terror plot involving ISIS.
Israeli officials and the White House have since declined to confirm or deny whether Israel was the information’s origin.
“[They’re] boiling mad and demanding answers,” another Israeli intelligence official told BuzzFeed about his colleagues in the wake of Trump’s disclosure.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster said Tuesday that Trump “in no way undermined sources or methods” while speaking recently with top Russian officials.
“The president wasn’t even aware of where this information came from,” he said at the White House.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the White House last week.
Trump’s “code-word information” disclosure risks damaging the relationship with the intelligence source, which has access to ISIS inner workings.