Information security

U.S. ALLIES PROBABLY WITHHOLD INFORMATION FROM DONALD TRUMP TO STOP IT FROM LEAKING TO VLADIMIR PUTIN, INTELLIGENCE EXPERT SAYS

United States allies may be withholding important information from President Donald Trump for fear that he might leak it to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former CIA agent suggested.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, retired CIA officer Steven Hall, who spent years running Russian operations, noted that Trump’s fraught relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies might have a negative effect on the way foreign intelligence agencies work with their U.S. counterparts.

“The president’s comments are uniquely self-defeating, in that our best hope for monitoring and perhaps modifying the behavior of rogue states such as Iran, North Korea and Russia is working in unison with our partners. Many have already taken note of Trump’s cavalier attitude toward sensitive information, as well as his apparent failure to understand the basic rules of intelligence sharing,” Hall wrote.

“I would be deeply surprised if many of our best intelligence allies were not already holding back information they would normally pass to their U.S. counterparts, for fear Trump might not be able to keep a secret. (Their concerns might even be darker when they consider the possibility that our president has reportedly discussed sensitive matters with Russian President Vladimir Putin behind closed doors with no record of the conversation),” the op-ed continued.