Rep. Himes: ‘This President Has Always Been Loose with the Use of Classified Information’

EXCERPT:

HIMES: "John, of course I can’t comment on the specifics of this case that CNN has broken. Our sources and our methods are the most closely guarded secrets we have. I can offer a couple of points of perspective, including starting with, again, the notion that five government officials are actually talking to Jim Sciutto. And look, I respect the press a lot, but what the heck? I mean, I remember a moment in time when we were all atwitter because Hillary Clinton might have had classified e-mails on her laptop and here five government officials apparently are talking about something far — one of the most guarded things, if it’s true, that we have. The other point I would make, John, unable as I am to talk about the specifics of this case, is a point of context, which is that this president has always been loose with the use of classified information. Just I think two weeks ago he tweeted out a satellite photograph of the destroyed — the destroyed Iranian missile on its launch pad. If you looked at that picture, you saw that it had a classification marker that had been blacked out. The problem with that, and of course there’s other examples, there’s the confiscation of the notes, there's a refusal to let people into meetings with Vladimir Putin, there’s the discussion of the accident that occurred in Russia. The reason that that’s important, of course, is that when you put up a satellite photograph on Twitter, people who are expert at these things in places like Russia and China and elsewhere can see our capabilities and they can counter those capabilities. So being loose with this kind of information, which this president regularly does, is actually a direct assault on our security."