WASHINGTON (TIP): President Trump on Thursday ordered ”complete review” by the Justice Department of leaks coming out of US government agencies as ties between Washington and London deteriorated sharply over American law enforcement agencies prematurely spilling information to the media on the Manchester bombing.
The US move came after an outraged UK government said it would stop sharing intel with US because it is compromising investigations, and British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would raise the matter/raised the matter with Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels, grating that ”intelligence that is shared between our law enforcement agencies must remain secure.”
The flap came after the US media published the suspected bomber’s name and other details of the probe even as British agencies moved to question his family and contacts. Photos of the blood smeared remnants of the attackers backpack and other evidence were also published in the U.S media, the information attributed to U.S law enforcement agencies.
A furious British Counter Terrorism Policing, a body that includes the police, security and intelligence agencies, tweeted: ”Unauthorised disclosure of potential evidence in the middle of a major investigation undermines our work.” Trump ignored a reporter’s question on the matter during a photo-op in Brussels, but faced with British fury and threats to stop sharing intel, took the opportunity to initiate an omnibus ”review” into the leaks through a written statement.
”The alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling. These leaks have been going on for a long time and my Administration will get to the bottom of this. The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security,” the US President.
Trump himself has been accused of sharing classified intel with Russian officials, something the President has said he has the ”absolute right” to do by virtue of the office he holds. He said he is ”asking the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to launch a complete review of this matter, and if appropriate, the culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
”There is no relationship we cherish more than the Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom,” Trump added, amid evident disquiet on the margins of the NATO summit in Brussels, where the U.S. President repeated charges that allies ”owe massive amounts of money” on defense and asked them to pony up. Trump had called Nato ”obsolete” during his election campaign, and although he has subsequently reeled back on his comments, the issue of financial burden sharing hung grimly over the alliance meeting. ”Members of the alliance must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations,” Trump said at the meeting. ”Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States.”
Consequently, Trump also appeared to hold back on the mutual defense pledge and security guarantees for the alliance. Trump’s eight-day tour of the Middle- East and Europe has been relentlessly caricatured in the U.S for perceived flubs and faux-pas, including shoddy language and lack of grace.
Meanwhile, trouble continues to brew at home over his campaign aides’ Russia ties and Obamacare repeal. On Wednesday, a Republican candidate locked in a crucial by-election to Congress was charged with assaulting a journalist from the Guardian newspaper, making an already shaky GOP even more jittery.
But Trump supporters insist that he is making history, and the relentless criticism is part of liberal hysteria. Maintaining that the 45th U.S President had just made a ”titanic foreign policy shift” and the media had missed it, Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich wrote in an oped that ”Never before has an American president tried so clearly to unite the civilized world, including the nations of the Middle East and Africa, against the forces of terrorism,” through what the former Speaker called a ”reality based foreign policy.” (PTI)