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The President’s defiant defense on Wednesday morning (AEST) comes amid reports that a former US official familiar the intelligence has revealed the leaked classified information was provided by Israel.
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The claims that the source of the intelligence was Israel, first reported by The New York Times, raises potential diplomatic problems for Mr Trump, who is this week preparing to make his first Presidential overseas trip to the United States’ closest Middle Eastern ally.
To complicate matters further, Russia has a close relationship with Iran, Israel’s fiercest opponent in the region.
Israeli officials would neither confirm nor deny to the NYT the assertions of an unnamed former US official familiar with how information was obtained that Israel was the source of the intelligence.
“Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump,” Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said in a statement.
Read the article in The New Daily.