by Mish Shedlock, Mish Talk:

Some people I would normally expect not to lose their minds following anti-Trump hype did lose their minds. Of course, the standard nutcases one might expect would lose their minds did so as well.

The result is has been a steady stream of nonsense all day regarding Trump’s alleged disclosure of highly classified information to Russia.

It took a collaboration of six (Jack Goldsmith, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn, Benjamin Wittes, Elishe Julian) to come up with Bombshell: Initial Thoughts on the Washington Post’s Game-Changing Story.

The article starts out …

The Washington Post this afternoon published a stunning story reporting that President Trump disclosed highly-classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during their visit to the Oval Office last week.

After firing off rounds of innuendo from BuzzFeed, the New York Time, the Washington Post, and Reuters, the authors admit “the President did not ‘leak’ classified information in violation of law. He is allowed to do what he did.”

In a very long-winded synopsis, the article discusses six points.

First, this is not a question of “leaking classified information” or breaking a criminal law.

Second, this is not a garden variety breach, and outrage over it is not partisan hypocrisy about protecting classified information.

Third, it is important to understand the nature of sources and methods information in order to fully understand the gravity of the breach.

Fourth, it really matters why Trump disclosed this information to Russian visitors.

Fifth, this may well be a violation of the President’s oath of office.

Sixth, it matters hugely, at least from an atmospheric point of view, that the people in the room were Russian and one of them was Sergey Kislyak of all people.

Conjecture and Hype

Point number 1 is correct. So is point number 4. The rest is conjecture and hype.

In regards to point number four, Trump may very well have decided it was in the US’s best interest to cooperate with Russia. If so, I would agree wholeheartedly.

In points 2-6 the authors spew out hype about what Top Secret means and whether the president violated his oath of office.

Top Secret

I like this tidbit: “In general, a Top Secret classification is applied to information the unauthorized disclosure of which could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security…”

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