President Donald Trump told the press in Jerusalem on Monday that he never mentioned Israel during a White House meeting with Russian officials a couple weeks ago.
Trump made the remarks during a media availability with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Washington Post reported last week that Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak pertaining to an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.
CNN reported the next day that an Israeli spy, embedded in the terrorist network, had gathered information on behalf of Israel, despite neither the U.S. and Israeli authorities confirming or denying the source was linked to Israel.
It is unclear whether Trump was prompted to respond to previous reports by press inquiries, but he told the press that he never mentioned anything about Israel.
"I never mentioned the word or the name Israel. Never mentioned during that conversation," Trump said.
"They're all saying I did, so you had another story wrong," he continued. "Never mentioned the word Israel."
