"President Trump appeared to acknowledge Tuesday that he revealed highly classified information to Russia — a stunning confirmation of a Washington Post story..."

"... and a move that contradicted his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report," WaPo reports . “As President I ...

"Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin..."

This Washington Post article — "How a dubious Russian document influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe" — is extremely hard to read.

"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job."

"... and a move that contradicted his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report," WaPo reports.

“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,” Trump wrote Tuesday morning. “Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”...

Trump's tweets undercut his administration's frantic effort Monday night to contain the damaging report. The White House trotted out three senior administration officials — National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — to attack the reports.

The president's admission also follows a familiar pattern. Last week, after firing FBI director James B. Comey, the White House originally claimed that the president was acting in response to a memo provided by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

It looks like they're not merely lying, they're incompetently lying, failing to get their story straight before they start talking. That's the simplest explanation of what we are seeing. Or do you think it's some "genius" move and I'm just failing to see the brilliance?

I wonder how McMaster, Powell, and Tillerson feel about the way they were used. Did Trump exploit them and then immediately blindside them? If so, would they resign and talk about it?

ADDED: Ben Sasse explains it: McMaster didn't really say what the media were saying he said:

“When I look at McMaster’s quote, it’s a pretty technical quote,” Mr. Sasse said. “I think it’s actually something quite different from a full rebuttal of the story.”

Incredibly, the NYT article where I got the Sasse quote, doesn't have the verbatim "pretty technical quote" from McMaster that Sasse is talking about. It only says: "General McMaster told reporters on Monday that The Post’s account “as reported” was 'false'...". I had to google it! Here:

The story that came out tonight as reported is false. The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time, [were] intelligen[ce] sources or methods discussed. And the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of the State, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. [They're] on the record accounts should outweigh anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen.