Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer slammed the Democratic National Committee for its statement Monday criticizing President Donald Trump over explosive accusations made in a Washington Post story about alleged leaks to the Russians.
"I think these statements are completely irresponsible from the DNC," he said on Fox News. "They have no idea what was revealed, they have no idea the gravity of it."
"It can be, perhaps it's not, but this is just pure opportunism," Krauthammer continued. "And a reflex reaction.
"Particularly since their candidate for the presidency had been spilling classified information," he explained, "some of the highest level, for a year and a half and the Democrats pretended that either it wasn't a problem or that it should be ignored. It's rather unseemly.
"Having said that, the issue is we don't know what the information was," he continued. "Probably the content of it is not the problem. What it sounds as if, is that we have an ally who's infiltrated into ISIS and this might have helped the Russians see that and perhaps, knowing the Russians, that information would be spilled elsewhere. Because after all the Russians are allied with Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, others. So that information could spread.
"It's something like what happened some years ago when there was a leak from the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda," Krauthammer explained, "I think they had advanced operations in terms of blowing up airliners by hiding electronics. And by leaking that, we revealed that we had somebody inside the operation was blown, and that was the end of that source of information.
"So it's not as if it hasn't happened before," he concluded, "it's possible we're not sure how much of a breach it is, but if it did hinder our relations with an ally whose already infiltrated inside, it could be a problem."
The Washington Post report claimed the more revealing details they received were being withheld on request from their sources who did not want classified information released.
The story has been denied by national security adviser H.R. McMaster in a statement outside the White House, but some reporters referred to it a "non-denial" because it was so carefully parsed and he took no questions from the press.
The story has been confirmed by sources to Buzzfeed, the New York Times, CNN, and Reuters. Supporters of the president decrying the report as "fake news" conjured up through anonymous sources.
