[Editor’s Note: Imagine the conniption fits the Rethuglicans would have had if Obama had done this. They would have moved for impeachment. When Trump does it? Uh, whatever… — Mark L. Taylor]
By Mary Papenfuss
HuffPost (12/28/18)
President Donald Trump posed with members of a Navy Seals special ops team in Iraq this week, then reportedly exposed information about them on Twitter that’s usually classified.
The location of such a deployment, as well as the identities or identifiable faces of service members, are usually classified, Defense Department sources told Newsweek magazine.
“The fact is they are a special operations force in a combat zone with a combat role. The reason their identities are protected is in case of capture,”
A president has the power to declassify such information, but Trump’s exposure of the team online was apparently inadvertent, USA Today reported.
According to the pool report of the president’s trip to Iraq, Trump asked the chaplain of Seal Team 5 to pose for a picture with him. Trump and first lady Melania Trump also posed for a photo with several other members of the team. The president later posted a video of the meeting to his Twitter account, revealing the faces of the team members and noting the presence of the team at the al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq: …