When she was a little girl, my daughter Lauren and I went everywhere together. Every errand, she was right there in the back seat, usually with a running commentary. The December when she was 3 years old, I remember, we went to find a Christmas present for her mother. After we bought this particular item, I explained to her the need for secrecy and that she shouldn’t tell her mother what we were doing or what we had picked up for her. The whole Christmas yarn. All good. She seemed to get it.

We drove home and Lauren ran in and yelled to her mother, “Mom, Dad and me went Christmas shopping and we got you a robe.” I was stunned and said, “Lauren, you weren’t supposed to say anything.” She turned around and said, “I didn’t tell her it was blue.”

I was reminded of that story recently while following the actions of our leader about his discussing top secret terrorism intelligence with the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister in the Oval Office (of all places). For those you who have been on vacation, I will recap.

The day after firing the FBI Director for getting too close to Trump administration officials’ and family members’ possible collusion with Russian intelligence agents, Trump invited two top Russian officials to the White House with their photographer. During the conversation with these two officials from a rogue state, Trump mentions that he is “under a lot less pressure” since firing that “nut job”. Please keep in mind that this is the President of the United States speaking to Putin’s henchmen and belittling the reputation of a respected US law officer who has served his country for years. Once again, we are forced to say about this man that nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the Republic and that wasn’t even the worst thing that Trump did that afternoon.

Later in the conversation, Trump starts to brag about the “great intel” he gets. He stumbles along in his conversation as he tells these Russians all about this intelligence that the US had gotten from one of its allies about ISIS developing laptop computer bombs. My understanding was that this information was considered “code word” intelligence. In other words, well above Top Secret clearance and limited to very few people with the highest level of clearance. Here is the leader of the United States using this level of clearance information to impress his “brand new friends” with how neat a guy he really is. Keep in mind that this information came from an ally and was expected to be held in strict confidence to protect that ally’s agents and sources. Trump doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get anything.

This latest Trump malfunction leaked immediately and, once again, the Trump White House was in crisis mode and forced to select a surrogate (sacrificial lamb) to deal with the press and Congressional concerns. As National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster was telling everyone that the President hadn’t revealed any critical information, Trump was on Twitter cutting his legs out from under him by Tweeting that he had the “absolute right” to brief the Russians on the intel.

Over the next few days, the press reported that the source of this intelligence was Israel  and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (what does he do, actually?) said that there would be no apology to the Israelis concerning our handling of this sensitive information. (Remember, Trump hates apologies and people who apologize.)

Fast forward a week to Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in a brief press meeting in Jerusalem when Trump offers this nugget, “Folks, folks, just so you understand, I never mentioned the name Israel during that conversation”. Sort of like my 3 year old saying, “I didn’t tell her it was blue.”

Once again, Trump denying something that had never been alleged. No one had ever accused him of identifying Israel as the source. He didn’t identify Israel because he didn’t know the source, not because of any level of self-control or awareness of possible ramifications from his utterances. They never told him the source of the information. What do you think the intelligence agencies are going to tell him from now on? There was never any love lost among the intelligence community for Donald Trump, but now there is also no trust. So, the US intelligence agencies do not trust the Commander in Chief. That should set us up well for the next 4 years. (DON’T EVEN SUGGEST THAT IT IS FOR 8 YEARS.)

The memory of this incident will be lost amid all of the malfeasance that is now being uncovered (requesting the FBI Director drop an investigation; requesting that the CIA and the NSA interfere in an ongoing FBI investigation; White House instructing Federal Agency ethics officers to refuse to cooperate with an ethics probe that is required by law),  but the very idea of the President having these conversations in the Oval Office with the Russian Foreign Minister is frightening. This bragging, lying 8th grade playground bully can do permanent damage from a White House perch.