Donald Trump angered by White House leaks
US President Donald Trump and US first lady Melania Trump walk to the residence of the White House from Marine One on the South Lawn May 27, 2017 in Washington, DC following his nine-day foreign trip. PHOTO | BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI | AFP
What you need to know:
- Mr Trump returned late Saturday from his first international trip as US president, geared up to combat concerns over aides’ ties to Russia.
- The report, if confirmed, would raise new questions about the Trump team’s relationship with the Russians.
WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump, who was uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter during his nine-day trip abroad, resumed his favourite past-time Sunday with a tweet storm in which he thundered against “fake news.”
“It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media,” he wrote the morning after his return home.
“Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!,” he wrote, spelling errors and all.
COMBAT CONCERNS
Mr Trump returned late Saturday from his first international trip as US president, geared up to combat concerns over aides’ ties to Russia including explosive reports that his son-in-law Jared Kushner sought a secret communications line with Moscow.
In an earlier tweet Sunday, Trump hailed what he called the trip’s “great success.”
“Just returned from Europe. Trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!” he wrote.
The latest furor was stirred up after The Washington Post reported late on Friday that Mr Kushner — arguably Mr Trump’s closest White House aide, and husband of the president’s eldest daughter Ivanka — made a pre-inauguration proposal to the Russian ambassador to set up a secret, bug-proof link with the Kremlin.
DIPLOMATIC FACILITIES
Mr Kushner, 36, even suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States to protect such a channel from monitoring, The Post said, quoting US officials briefed on intelligence reports.
The report, if confirmed, would raise new questions about the Trump team’s relationship with the Russians, who US intelligence agencies say tried to sway the November election in Trump’s favour.
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster refused to talk about the allegations.
But he said that in general, “We have backchannel communication with a number of countries. What that allows you to do is communicate in a discrete manner.” “I would not be concerned about it,” he added.
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
But a former head of the US National Security Agency harshly condemned Mr Kushner’s alleged effort to set up a secret communications line, saying if it is true, it would reveal a dangerous degree of ignorance or naivete.
“What manner of ignorance, chaos, hubris, suspicion, contempt would you have to have to think that doing this with the Russian ambassador was a good or appropriate idea?” Mr Michael Hayden said on CNN.
He said he leaned toward “naivete” as an explanation, though he did not find it comforting.
TERRORISM
Mr Malcolm Nance, a retired naval officer and expert on terrorism and intelligence, said: “This is now sinister. There is no way this can be explained, from the intelligence perspective.”
“That is indicative of espionage activity of an American citizen that is working in league with a hostile government,” he told MSNBC.
The Washington Post said Mr Kushner’s secret communications proposal was made December 1 or 2 at Trump Tower in New York, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by US officials.
