INTERVIEW – ELI LAKE – Bloomberg View columnist

Trump’s Best Defense on Russia Is Incompetence. (Bloomberg View/Eli Lake) –  One way you know the president is in trouble is that, accused of collusion, his best defense is incompetence. Such is the case with Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey. And such is the case with the latest scandal to hit this White House, that Trump disclosed highly classified information in his meeting last week with Russia’s foreign minister.  It looks terrible. Trump fires the FBI director investigating Russia’s influence of the election, and the very next day has the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office. He proceeds to divulge to his guests  sensitive details about an allied intelligence operation that detected an Islamic State plot against airlines. U.S. officials told the Post that this disclosure was “reckless” and violated the trust of an allied spy service. The implications could be grave. Intelligence cooperation could be chilled. A human source could be in danger. Our efforts to disrupt the Islamic State could be hobbled. That said, this doesn’t look like collusion with the Russians. “Collusion” implies the information should not be shared