Pascrell Assails National Security Disaster

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) today reacted harshly to published reports that in May 2017, U.S. intelligence services removed a high-level source in Russia out of fear that Donald Trump’s actions may have been endangering the source’s life.

“These reports are nothing short of a national security crisis. The damage this breach causes is incalculable and the accompanying treachery could be on the level of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen,” said Rep. Pascrell, the co-chair of the Congressional Law Enforcement Caucus. “Such a source with intimate access to the highest levels of the Kremlin takes years, even decades of painstaking work and cultivation by our intelligence professionals. The loss of this source is damaging not just in our diplomatic relations with Russia but could set back our intelligence-gathering across the world for at least a generation. It is difficult enough to recruit without possible sources fearing the head of the U.S. government might endanger them.

“A national security matter of the highest importance, House committees of jurisdiction must immediately look at what role, if any, Donald Trump and members of his administration had in the decision to extract or reveal the source.”

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