Congresswoman introduces bill meant to stop top-level officials from blabbing to hostile states

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published 24 May 2017

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) on Wednesday introduced a bill that would require the president to alert Congress if anyone in the executive branch happened to, say, reveal some classified information to certain hostile nations. Murphy rolled out her bill just over a week after reports surfaced that President Trump had revealed highly classified information passed to the U.S. from Israel in an Oval Office meeting with Russian officials.

Murphy's bill, the Prevention and Oversight of Intelligence Sharing with Enemies (POISE) Act, would require the president "to promptly notify the House and Senate congressional intelligence committees when any U.S. executive branch official, including the president himself, intentionally or inadvertently discloses Top Secret information to government officials of nations that sponsor terrorism or, like Russia, are subject to U.S. economic sanctions."

As a former national security specialist at the Pentagon, Murphy said she's witnessed how damaging it can be to spill classified information. "When U.S. intelligence falls into the wrong hands, it puts our service members, intelligence operatives, and diplomats at risk and undermines our national security interests around the world," she said in a statement. "Additionally, our allies are unlikely to share highly-sensitive intelligence if they lose confidence in our ability to protect such information."