CIA Director Mike Pompeo will come to Capitol Hill Tuesday night to brief members of the House Intelligence Committee about the shocking developments of the past week, including the revelation that President Donald Trump shared highly classified information about an Islamic State threat with Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting.
The top Democrat on that committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), said at a conference in Washington earlier Tuesday that he fears the president’s carelessness could cause the source of the intelligence in question to “dry up or go away.” He added that the ally nation that reportedly produced the intelligence and shared it with the United States could decide that the Trump administration can’t be trusted with sensitive information. If that information concerns threats to the American homeland, Schiff noted, this rupture could prove dangerous.
“We immediately have to go into damage mitigation mode,” Schiff said, urging the administration to reach out to the ally and “assure them we’ll be more careful in the future.”
With several members of the intelligence community testifying over the past few months that Russian meddling in U.S. elections is likely to continue in the future, Schiff warned that the only way to “inoculate” the country from future attacks is to “fully investigate what they did and how they did it.”
“The most fundamental point is how we protect our democracy in the future,” he said.
