A longtime Republican critic of President Donald Trump said Tuesday the reports that Trump shared classified information are dangerous because they undermine intelligence assets’ faith that the US will protect them.
“It is important why we understand why leaks are dangerous of any place they originate because we want those people out in the field that are our assets or our ally’s assets to know what they’re doing is going to be protected,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day.” “Sources and methods again are the lifeblood of the intel community.”
During the 2016 campaign, Sasse became one of the most vocal and prominent elected officials associated with the ill-fated “Never Trump” movement.
Trump insisted on Twitter Tuesday he had the right to share information with Russia related to terrorism and other issues.
“Governing tweetstorm to tweetstorm is not a sustainable strategy,” the armed services committee member said. “And the President has picked a lot of good people. They are smart people and honorable people in this President’s White House and they have a really, really hard job because it feels like kiddy soccer most days.”
Sasse also stressed concerns over Russia being on the receiving end of the information.
“Our interests and Russia’s interest do not align. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is a bad guy,” he said. “He wants to fracture NATO. He’s an enemy of free speech, religion, press and assembly, the beating heart of the American experiment.”
“So, it’s not at all helpful that this happened with Russians, but again particulars about the meeting, we don’t know all that much yet,” he added.