"Highly damaging": Ex-CIA deputy director on report Trump revealed classified info
President Donald Trump revealed "highly classified" information to Russian officials during a meeting at the White House last week, The Washington Post reported.
"This is highly damaging for two reasons," said former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell about the reported reveal, which the White House denies. "First, the Russians will undoubtedly try to figure out the source or the method of this information to make sure that it is not also collecting on their activities in Syria -- and in trying to do that they could well disrupt the source."
"The second damage is that third countries who provide the United States with intelligence information will now have pause to do so if the United States is sharing such information with the Russians without their permission," Morell said in a conversation with CBS News' Scott Pelley.
Pelley asked Morell if he felt better that, according to National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster, no methods or sources were compromised.
"Not a lot better… but not sharing that source or method does not make any better the problems I outlined earlier," he said.
MORE: "At no time, at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed," H.R. McMaster says, denying report: https://t.co/6XEQ0A2tDF pic.twitter.com/HzSkSm7Rkb
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 15, 2017
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Meanwhile, a senior White House official, who was in the room with Mr. Trump and the Russian officials, repeated what others have said today that The Washington Post story isn't true. No classified information of any kind was disclosed by Mr. Trump, no source information and no operational information. The source told CBS News that the leaks are coming from people who weren't there or no longer in the government at all.