Idaho senator defends Trump and his 'ability to declassify anything at any time'

Sen. Jim Risch.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Trump has at least one senator standing behind him following The Washington Post's report that he gave highly classified information not meant to be shared to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a meeting last week.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) had no issue with Trump possibly giving out sensitive information to representatives of a foreign country accused of interfering with the 2016 presidential election, telling Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo that the president "has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process. So it's no longer classified the minute he utters it." While the president does have the right as commander in chief to do this, "any president needs to be careful," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.