In seeking Ukraine favor, Trump was vulnerable to foreign spies, intelligence inspector general warned
U.S. President Donald Trump potentially exposed himself to “serious national security and counter-intelligence risks” when he pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate a leading political rival, Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, and his son, the intelligence community’s inspector general warned.
The previously undisclosed warning, included in a Justice Department legal opinion released on Wednesday, reflected the concerns of a whistleblower who filed a complaint about a July 25 call between Trump and then newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The legal opinion does not spell out the counter-intelligence risks, but former U.S. officials have expressed fears to Reuters that Russian spies could have obtained detailed knowledge of the call before it was made public and used it to gain leverage over the U.S. president. [Continue reading…]