On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Senator James Risch (R-ID) reacted to the Washington Post‘s report that President Trump revealed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister by saying, “there’s a weasel here, and the weasel is not the president of the United States. It’s the traitor who disclosed these facts to the Washington Post.”
Risch argued there was a difference between Trump’s actions and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, because as the president, Trump has the legal right to declassify information, while Clinton didn’t. whether he did it knowingly or unknowingly. it was a fact that he wanted to discuss with the
He added that the president has not just a legal right, but a moral right and obligation to declassify and disclose information when they believe it is in the US’ interest to do so.
Risch further argued that it doesn’t matter whether Trump understood the sensitivity of the information he passed on to the Russians.
He further said, “[I]f president trump had stood up and revealed — just what — to the public just what he did in a classified setting with those foreign leaders that he wanted to discuss those things with, we could have this argument about whether it was appropriate to disclose publicly. That’s not what he did.”
Risch concluded the discussion by stating, “Look, again, I come back to here there’s a weasel here, and the weasel is not the president of the United States. It’s the traitor who disclosed these facts to the Washington Post. I wish you’d go out and interview the Washington Post and ask them to disclose who that is.”
(h/t Grabien)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.