Donald Trump's young Presidency has been plunged into a fresh crisis by the publication in the United States of multiple reports claiming that he divulged highly classified intelligence to the Russians.
In a conversation last week in the Oval Office with the Russian foreign minister and the country's ambassador to the United States, the President is reported to have disclosed detailed information relating to a possible terrorist strike on international aviation.
The White House has called the reports "false", but our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks says coming less than a week after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, they are giving Republicans on Capitol Hill fresh reasons to worry about the Trump Presidency.
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There are not many things a President of the United States is really, really not supposed to do….especially one who has fulminated for weeks about people who leak classified information.
And pretty high on the list is….leaking classified information…..especially to the Russians.
But that is what multiple reports now claim President Trump did….last week in the Oval Office….during his back-slapping meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
The allegations were first reported by the Washington Post in an article that brought this city to a standstill….then confirmed by other news organizations.
President Trump, they reported, had boasted about the highly classified intelligence at his disposal, telling his Russian visitors about the threat of a terrorist strike on trans-Atlantic aviation.
It was information provided to America by one of its global partners - possibly Britain - and information that the United States did not have permission to share.
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It fell to National Security Advisory HR McMaster - not for the first time - to carry some very difficult water for the President….just moments after telling reporters that there was nowhere he would less like to be than in their immediate orbit.
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He took no questions.
And reporters noted that he was denying something the Washington Post never even alleged.
The newspaper never claimed that Mr. Trump shared information about intelligence sources and methods with the Russians.
And General McMaster never specifically addressed the allegations the newspaper did make.
On America's news channels, where hyperbole always finds a home, there was plenty of it.
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That's Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz on CNN.
His opinion probably doesn't matter much to President Trump….but the view of Republicans on Capitol Hill does.
And Senator Bob Corker….up till now a Trump loyalist….told reporters the White House is now in a downward spiral and urgently needs to find a way out of it.
The day had been lousy already for White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer….who once again stonewalled a barrage of questions about whether President Trump has deployed a recording system in the Oval Office.
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What radio doesn't convey is the face like thunder that he displayed during a White House briefing dominated by the President's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey….and the suspicion that he was dispatched by a President eager to derail the Bureau's investigation into ties between his campaign team and the Russians.
Within hours, the reports that the President had leaked classified information were breathing new…possibly unstoppable life…into calls for an independent commission to investigate all things Trump and Russia.
And 4 days before he heads off on his first international trip as President, intelligence community sources are telling American news organizations that President Trump can't be trusted to keep secrets secret from Moscow.
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