Frenemies at the Gate: Trump and the Manchester Leaks

British intelligence about the Manchester attacks was published in the American media. Now both countries are dealing with the aftermath.

Trump and British Security are the mashup nobody asked for and nobody wanted, but we’re getting it anyway. It’s like the two most dislikable people in high school tying the knot in Missouri. Why, God—and why there? If Trump is horrifically tasteless by the loosey-goosey standards of the New World, consider what the Old Countries think of him.

Given the habits of the President, it was inevitable that there would be a leak, and that Trump would denounce said leak.

The British are required to have dealings with Donald Trump, and how it must mummify them. The best quality workmanship has gone into making European institutions the kind of triple-padlocked edifices which would repel Trump-like power … much in the same way that everybody avoids the day-drunk and the guy wearing the Members Only jacket at the hotel bar. It won’t do Europe any good now: rich, wild, goofy America chose their prom queen, and so the United Kingdom must follow the U.S., their most insufferable son that isn’t Australia.

Per the Washington Post:

In a statement issued amid meetings in Brussels with leaders of NATO member nations, Trump responded to British outrage over the leaks by calling them “deeply troubling” and vowing to “get to the bottom of this.” He added: “The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security. I am asking the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to launch a complete review of this matter, and if appropriate, the culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There is no relationship we cherish more than the Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.”

Trump was upset—because he is required to be, and because this reflects poorly on him. And, I think, possibly because his own exalted place as leaker-in-chief has been upstaged by a mysterious other party inside his own governing circle. What a dark glass to see through! Prime Minister May was furious, for more obvious reasons. The xenophobes are baying at the moon for internal security, and here her Government is, unable to secure its own information stream:

May said Thursday morning she would “make clear” to Trump during their meeting at the NATO summit that “intelligence that is shared between our law enforcement agencies must remain secure.”

Intelligence-sharing is the holy beating heart of the Atlantic alliance—not just its heart, but its spleen, and bowels, and other gross analogous organs you can probably think of. The Anglo-American Intelligence community requires a level of catch-me trust between the two biggest imperial powers of the last three hundred years. In the past, no matter how “radical’ American politics got, the partnership remained secure. There was no threat to the settled order of things. It was totally fresh and dope, as we used to say back then.

But now there’s a snag. This mutated version of the American government does not take the sharing of information seriously. The Burn Book is no longer secure, like baby teeth in a junior high mouth. It’s amateur hour on the Potomac, and the Tories know it. The guilty whisperer is likely buried in the Executive Branch. That’s a terrifying prospect for the leadership of both countries.

That is why Westminster is furious. And it’s why Trump has ordered (and had to order) a leak-investigation by the Department of Justice. The British invented the modern, knife-in-the-back, paranoid style of spying and data-gathering, and here they are having their secrets spilled every which way. Bugger.