Our daily Bloomberg Law Brief, now exploring legal issues in the news, and it's brought to you by American Arbitration Association. Business disputes are inevitable, resolve faster with the American Arbitration Association, the global leader in alternative dispute resolution for over ninety years. More at a d R dot org. Well, today we turned to the story that was gripping Washington and the White House before news of that memo from former FBI
Director James Comy came out last night. That's the Washington Post report that President Trump revealed classified intelligence documents to Russia's top diplomat during a meeting last week. For the legal implications of that story, Bloomberg Law host Student Grosso and Great Store speak to Stephen Vladik, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Steve, before we get deep deeper into the details of federal law law, let's just get to the bottom line. Is it possible
that Donald Trump broke the law? So I think it's possible he broke the law, and I think it's the most important point for folks to take away is what he actually did is not what's being described Um. So, there are a lot of folks, you know, saying that the president has the power to declassify whatever information he chooses to declassify. That may very well be true. That's
not what he did, um right. And we know that because if the President had declassified the information he you know, apparently told to the Russians, the Washington Post would then have reported it, right as to say, the Post would have then told us exactly what it was. It's still classified. What happened here was the President authorized the Foreign Minister of Russia, the Russian ambassador of the U. S. And whoever else is in that room to receive this class
that information. You know, that's a very different legal question than whether the president can you know, going forward, for all purposes declassify national security secrets. Is it also a question he was not only declassifying national security secrets, but he was declassifying our allies secrets. That's a great point. I mean, so I think that's relevant both legally and
um politically. So legally, you know, it's very possible that we have formal agreements with foreign intelligence agencies, including whichever foreign intelligence agency was responsible for the information issues here, that actually limits the circumstances in which any US official, including the president, is allowed to share information that we receive from that foreign intelligence agency. Frankly, would be surprising
if we didn't have that kind of an agreement. So it's possible that the president's disclosure, you know, also violated that kind of of legal constraint, but also optically, I mean, I think the real problem is here. Even if President Trump didn't break the law, that damage this does to, you know, the prospect of trying to ask other foreign intelligence agencies to share information with US going forward, frankly
as mind boggling. That is Stephen Vladi, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, speaking to Bloomberg Law host John Grusso and Greg's store. You can listen to Bloomberg Law weekdays at one BM whilst time here on Bloomberg Radio. That is this Morning's Bloomberg Law Brief. You can find more legal news Bloomberg lawn dot com and Bloomberg Bena dot com. Attorneys will find exceptional legal
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