Intentionally or otherwise, President Trump continues to make headlines, this time involving allegedly highly sensitive information on ISIS that he shared with senior Russian officials during an Oval Office visit. If, as the Washington Post has alleged, that the information was provided by a U.S. ally in the region and that Trump did not seek the ally’s clearance in advance to share the intelligence with the Russians, it represents potential collateral political damage with said ally. Today, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster held a press conference clearly designed as a damage control operation, although by admitting that “the president wasn’t even aware of where this information came from” he only reinforced the image of Trump as impulsive and careless.

One thing that is not in question is Trump’s authority to share the data with the Russians. The real question is whether he should’ve done so. 

Recall that it was the Soviet KGB’s successor organization, the FSB, that gave the CIA and the FBI the tip that the Tsarnaev brothers were terrorist-in-the-making two years before the Boston Marathon Bombing. That episode was the exception to the rule and record of America’s dealings with Russian intelligence services, as one CIA veteran of Russian operations noted earlier this year. Trump has made no secret of the fact that he wants to increase counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Russia, particularly against ISIS. Whether his off-the-cuff intelligence sharing foray with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Kislyak was the right way to do it is highly debatable. That it has at least temporarily focused attention away from a genuine ongoing scandal–the “Russiagate” investigation and the timing of the firing of ousted FBI Director James Comey–is beyond dispute. Trump’s Oval Office antics have given the Russians unearned wins on both issues this week.