Donald Trump’s Oval Office boasting to the Russians, if confirmed, could wreak its deepest and most enduring damage on vital intelligence-sharing by US allies.

A similar erosion of trust in the president’s loyalties and competence appeared to have accelerated among Trump’s political allies in Washington. As the White House fought back hard against the Washington Post report, which was confirmed on Tuesday night by several other US news organisations, it was unclear how far his support from the Republican establishment – essential to his survival as president – had been weakened.

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In the world of intelligence-sharing among nations, however, any semblance of doubt can be corrosive and irrevocable. Even before this latest indiscretion, there had been rumblings of concern from the CIA’s partner agencies abroad, uneasy about the Trump campaign’s seemingly cosy relation with Moscow, reports of possible collusion in the 2016 election campaign, and Trump’s own disdain for the US intelligence community. He frequently appeared to give more credence to conspiracy sites and the Kremlin that the intelligence briefings he received before taking office.

“During the transition, many allies voiced concern Trump team might share intel with Moscow. Today’s news will compound that concern,” Colin Kahl, a senior official in the Obama administration’s national security council (NSC), said in a tweet.

In the days before Trump’s inauguration, Israeli intelligence officials were reportedly getting nervous that what they shared with the new administration could end being leaked to Russia and then Tehran, after officials from the outgoing White House warned them the Kremlin had “leverage” over Trump. The intelligence agency whose secrets Trump allegedly shared with Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, appeared likely to be from the Middle East, adding further complications to the president’s ambitious plan to tour the world, starting later this week with meetings in Saudi Arabia with allies in the fight against Islamic State.

The extent to which US allies share the crown jewels of the intelligence networks is carefully calibrated. It is a currency in bilateral relations and a measure of the health of ties between nations.

The closest relationship of all is Five Eyes, the club of English-speaking countries who pool the bulk of their intelligence: the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Membership was regarded as a status symbol by those allied agencies, but the downside of sharing the most intimate details became apparent when the internal workings of the UK signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, ended up in the hands of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) contractor turned whistleblower.

Trump’s cavalier attitude towards state secrets and his chumminess with Moscow can only deepen the anxiety in London and other allied capitals.

A former Canadian intelligence analyst, Stephanie Carvin wrote on Twitter on Monday night: “The news that Trump is giving allied classified information to the Russians is a worst-case scenario for US intel allies, especially Five Eyes.”

People may die, including Americans, if fear over Trump leaking leads to refusal to share sensitive information Richard Nephew, former NSC official

“The intelligence community – in the United States and in the other Five Eyes –must now reckon with the Trump risk,” said Thomas Wright, the director of the centre on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. “The man who has the right to ask for and see all US intelligence cannot be trusted not to blurt it to whoever it is he wants to impress on any given day. They will take all necessary actions to protect their sources and methods, even if that detrimentally impacts intelligence cooperation.”



If intelligence sharing drops off, it could have a drastic impact on security, most immediately counter-terrorism where the smooth transmission of intelligence is the key to preventing attacks planned on one side of the globe and targeted on another.

“People may die, including American citizens, if fear over Trump leaking leads to refusal to share sensitive information in the future,” Richard Nephew, a former NSC and state department official now at Columbia University, said. “[It] starts with the danger to the sources and methods .. .people could have died to acquire this information. To continue, I think it may be impossible to overstate how bad and dangerous this might turn out to be.”



At home, there is another concern for Trump – will questions about competence and reliability erode Republican faith in him? While Democrats have likened Trump’s conduct to that of Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 amid the expectation that he would be impeached over the Watergate scandal, Republicans have shown a near blind allegiance to the man who handed them the White House after eight years.

From Trump’s baseless allegation that he was wiretapped by Barack Obama, to his abrupt decision to fire FBI director James Comey last week, Republicans have at largely fallen in line.

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Congress is conducting two separate but parallel investigations of its own into Russian interference in the US election, through the Senate and House intelligence committees. But both panels have been subject to partisan squabbling behind the scenes, and the willingness among Republicans to look the other away amid Trump’s unprecedented behavior has raised doubts over whether his own party can oversee a fair and thorough investigation.

The report of Trump’s alleged sharing of classified information with the Russians prompted at least one top Republican to cast the White House as in “a downward spiral”.

“To compromise a source is something that you just don’t do,” Bob Corker, the chairman of the influential Senate foreign relations committee, told reporters. “That’s why we keep the information that we get from intelligence sources so close, is to prevent that from happening.”