Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at a news conference in Sochi, Russia this morning where he offered to provide Congress with a transcript of exactly what Trump said to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister in the oval office last week.
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin, deriding as “political schizophrenia” a furor in Washington over President Trump’s sharing of classified intelligence with Russia, said on Wednesday that he was ready to give American lawmakers “a record” of the Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and senior Russian diplomats. [...]
“If the U.S. administration finds this appropriate, we’re ready to provide a record of the conversation between Lavrov and Trump to the U.S. Senate and Congress,” the Russian president said. The Russian word for “record” can refer to an audio recording, but the Interfax news agency quoted a Kremlin aide, Yuri V. Ushakov, as telling reporters that Moscow had in its possession a written record of the conversation, not a recording.
Why would the Kremlin be in possession of a transcript of an oval office meeting while the American Congress is not?
Because no members of the American press were allowed into the meeting but a Russian photographer carrying his own equipment was. Members of Congress will be briefed on the oval office conservation and some specific details of it have been leaked to the press, but the Kremlin had access to that information from the start.
Of course, we probably shouldn't trust that information provided by the Kremlin is authentic, but I also don't believe information provided by the Trump regime is authentic. Trump's staff and members of his cabinet routinely lie to the public.
As for the leak itself, NBC News reported this morning that news outlets are still being asked not to report the details of the conversation.
U.S. intelligence officials have asked NBC News and other media organizations not to report the type of equipment, where it was stolen, and the name of the city where the intelligence was gathered, because doing so could harm U.S. national security, they say. But Trump told the Russians those things, the U.S. officials said, as he described intelligence that led to the new rules banning electronic devices in the cabins of certain flights.
The information came from Israel, multiple government officials told NBC News — another fact some news organizations had been asked not to disclose, U.S. officials said.
While NBC News and many other outlets have been asked not to report the details, the details are out there. Sources say Trump shared intelligence gathered by an Israeli military intelligence asset embedded within ISIS. Trump also shared the specific city the information was gathered in, but I won't reprint that.
The Israeli government hasn't formally acknowledged any of this, but former Mossad spy agency chiefs aren't holding back.