Regarding President Trump’s disclosure of classified intelligence to Rusia, Jules Suzdaltsev of Vice tweets:
Just so we’re all on the same page: an allied informant is likely being tortured to death as we speak, thanks ONLY to Trump’s big mouth.
Suzdaltsev has no idea whether an allied informant is being tortured. Indeed, since the location of the informant (if there is one) was not disclosed, except reportedly to Russia, there’s little reason to believe that ISIS or any other terrorist group has identified the informant.
But that’s not the main fallacy in Suzdaltsev’s tweet. The main fallacy is that, unless Russia is torturing the informant or it shared Trump’s intel with ISIS (both of which are extremely unlikely), it’s not Trump’s big mouth that’s primarily to blame for the supposed torture. Primary blame would reside, instead, with (1) the person[s] who leaked the story to the Washington Post and (2) the Post for running the story.
To be clear, I don’t think the Post’s story puts anyone in jeopardy. There’s not enough information in it.
But Suzdaltsev assumes the story contains enough information to enable ISIS to identify the informant (or that Russia gave ISIS such info, which almost surely didn’t happen). If that’s the case, then it isn’t “thanks ONLY to Trump’s big mouth” that the informant has been identified.
The hysterical anti-Trump left is going to have a field day speculating wildly about hypothetical damage to our foreign policy and national security caused by Trump’s “big mouth.” Meanwhile, it’s not even clear yet that Trump’s disclosure caused any appreciable damage.
Unfortunately, it’s not wildly speculative to suggest that Trump’s big mouth is injuring, or at least demeaning, his presidency.
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