The MSM is confusing the President -- who can declassify government secrets -- with, say, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who cannot.

Exactly what CLASSIFIED intel is he supposed to have shared.

According to wapo: The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

The MSM is confusing the President -- who can declassify government secrets -- with, say, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who cannot.

Perhaps.

To me, it comes down to anonymous sources vs on the record sources and which i choose to believe.

endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.

I'm guessing Trump got a tip from the Israelis that laptops were going to be used as bombs. So he passed that info on to the Russians.

The concern, I guess, is that the Russians may suspect that the info came from the Israelis. Uh-huh. Yeah, who would have ever thought that?

But I'm betting the Russians have even better sources, and we may get a tip from the Russians someday. Given that no one gave a FF what Hillary did, I'm not going to give this a second thought.

But I'm betting the Russians have even better sources, and we may get a tip from the Russians someday.

It has already happened. The Russians gave us advance notice of the Boston Marathon bombing. Yet Washington did nothing with the info so the bombing took place as planned. Russia is NOT an enemy of the U.S. The enemedia and the left in the U.S. hate Putin because he has stated unequivocally that Russia is a Christian nation and he will not tolerate massive influxes of Muslims trying to change it to a Caliphate, as is happening in America. That's why the left in America is so totally hateful toward Russia. They hate that country just as much as they hate Christianity.

But I'm betting the Russians have even better sources

probably more objective, less biased sources, to boot.

probably more objective, less biased sources, to boot.

Well, I was thinking that Russia's interrogation techniques are a little more strict. Those sources.

Fake news

Exactly right. The President is at the apex of the pyramid. The PURPOSE of intelligence collection and processing is to get him, the final decider, the most complete picture that can be gotten of reality, so that he can decide what to do. Every OTHER cog in the machine of producing that information has a requirement to keep it secret. But the President is the ultimate consumer of the information, and the ultimate decider of natonal interest. That is why being elected the Chief Executive Officer and Commander-in-Chief MEANS.

It also means that if he decides, in his sovereign authority and not subject to any oversight other than the people's opinion in the next election, that Top Secret information is to be shared with an adversary, even an enemy, for a strategic purpose that he thinks is of benefit to the US and its allies, he has the plenary and unreviewable authority to do that. For anybody ELSE to do that would be a breach of national security, but the President is the ultimate decider of what national security IS.

It is true that exposing intelligence methods can result in the deaths of people abroad who help us. It is unwise to destroy our assets for trivial reasons. BUT the President has the authority to expose people to death if he decides that the national interest is served. It's an awesome and terrible responsibility, but there are times in international relations, and in the pursuit of national interest, when leaders DO sacrifice pawns.

The Doolittle Raid is an example of an intentional suicide mission. All of the planes with all of the crews were sent on a mission from which it was certain they would not return. It was hoped that the crews would be able to escape through assistance in parts of China, and some did, but others died, and the President knew they were going to die when he gave the order to launch the raid.

Trump didn't just get our spies killed, but he has the authority to take decisions that expose our spies to death, if he thinks it is in the national interest. There is not a law that blocks him. HE DECIDES.

(Which is a very good reason for a thinking person to never get involved in that line of work.)