Trump revealing classified intel to the Russians wasn't illegal. But it is impeachable.

This is the latest illustration that Trump is unfit for office

President Trump in New Jersey
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

For reasons I've never been able to understand, Hillary Clinton's private email server utterly dominated coverage of her 2016 presidential campaign. Ironically, that obsession led us to elect a president who is far worse even on the narrow issue of information security. In the latest scoop from The Washington Post, Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe report that Donald Trump revealed "highly classified" information to officials of the Russian government at a meeting last week. This is the latest illustration that Trump is unfit for office — but no doubt, congressional Republicans will continue to look the other way.

As Miller and Jaffe observe, uniquely among public officials, the president can declassify information, and therefore Trump probably didn't violate the law. But this is hardly a defense — as Matthew Yglesias at Vox quipped, "It would be legal for him to issue pardons to pro-Trump militias who execute his enemies." Given the very broad legal authority the president possesses, mere legality does not mean that an abuse of power shouldn't warrant removal from office. And there is a very good case that revealing this highly sensitive information violated his oath of office and is hence a potentially impeachable offense.

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Scott Lemieux

Scott Lemieux is a professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., with a focus on the Supreme Court and constitutional law. He is a frequent contributor to the American Prospect and blogs for Lawyers, Guns and Money.