Amanar wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
McMaster's very first sentence was that the report was false. Period.
I'm confused here. So... we are supposed to trust McMaster's take on the situation over this "anonymous source"? In the report, the anonymous source accuses Trump of sharing sensitive facts with the Russians. McMasters says the report is false. Then Trump and other white house officials come out and say that facts
were shared with the Russians. So, it seems the report wasn't false. Not as a whole.
I don't recall if the article used the word "sensitive facts" but regardless, "sensitive" is not a synonym for "classified". either way, McMaster was in the room and put his own name and the specific names of other senior officials out there as witnesses. The "anonymous source" may or may not have even actually been there.
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And yet... we're supposed to trust McMaster, who has been proven wrong, over the anonymous source? I think it's pretty clear at this point that the anonymous source is at least somewhat credible. If they were just making **** up, the administration could have easily just denied the whole thing as nonsense.
McMaster hasn't been proven wrong, and he did deny the whole thing as nonsense - aside from the fact that a meeting with Russian officials did occur and facts of some nature were discussed. Some of those facts may have been "sensitive" but that does not contradict anything McMaster said. The article is attempting to make it appear that the discussion of any fact at all with the Russians other than those obviously available in public. This is silly; what do you think happens in private diplomatic exchanges? All of the suspicion so far has been generated by playing fast and loose with the lack of a general public understanding of how "classified", "sensitive", and "facts" are not the same thing in this context.
Furthermore, the Russians have their own intelligence means and sources. They are likely aware of many of the "classified" facts that we are aware of by their own means. If the Russians are already known to be aware of some fact anyhow, discussing it with them is hardly giving anything away to them, and whether its classified or not is irrelevant. There has been no mention of this in any of this discussion. Once again, we are obsessing over the domestic implications and behaving as if a major foreign power has no ability to act on its own. In fact, the Russians may have a better intelligence operation than we do in the Middle East since they are notably less recalcitrant about either spending money or the risks of embarrassment if they're exposed.