Donald Trump Tweeted A Classified Photo From Intelligence Briefing, Said U.S. Officials

The U.S. President Donald Trump is no stranger to Twitter. He even opt to use @realDonaldTrump for his formal account, rather than @POTUS.

And here, the President that has previously spent his time ripping of people using his own thoughts, has tweeted some classified photos from the U.S. military to all of his followers and the world, after an intelligence briefing earlier at the day.

"The United States of America was not involved in the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations for the Safir SLV Launch at Semnan Launch Site One in Iran," Trump tweeted. "I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened at Site One."

Here, Trump was referring to the failed rocket launch at a space center in Iran that was confirmed by both Iranian and U.S. officials.

The explosion was Iran's third consecutive failure at putting its own satellite into orbit.

But what was attached to the tweet, was a photo of the rocket launch pad where the explosion happened.

The U.S. "rarely" disclose this kind of photos, mainly because such photos are shot and collected by its military and intelligence agencies, and are made with much higher resolution and quality than commercial satellite images publicly available.

What made it even more concerning is that, the photo Trump posted have specific markers, indicating that it was taken by a U.S. military asset, and may have had a high classification level.

This is confirmed by a U.S. official to the CNN, saying that the photo looks like it came from a satellite operated by the intelligence community, and not taken from a drone or manned aircraft flying over Iranian airspace.

According to Cees Bassa, a professional astronomer who works at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, the photo of the launchpad, was likely captured by USA-224, one of four classified U.S. spy satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office that are in orbit.

Allison Puccioni, an imagery analyst and army veteran, said that the U.S. has the capability to collect technical information about overseas proliferation, but it "rarely" publicized such imagery, "with a noteworthy exception of such images collected during the 2002-2003 runup to the Iraq War."

"Trump's tweeted image was not from any sensor" anyone in the open-source intelligence community can access, she added. "The dissemination of this image seems out-of-step with the U.S. policy regarding its publication of such data. Not sure what the political objective of dissemination was."

Edward Price, a former senior director at the National Security Council under Barack Obama, said that the U.S. "spend some $70 billion annually on our intelligence capabilities, [...] And yet, Trump seems to have put at risk a key asset for absolutely no benefit."

Alex Finley, a former CIA officer, said that tweeting the photo is "outrageous and reckless." While "it's hardly the first time we've seen this. And maybe he has a right to act this way, even if it is moronic."

As the President of the U.S., Trump has the power and authority to declassify anything he wants, but still, he is expected to act with the utmost discretion.

Disclosing this kind of photos for public viewing, is like saying to the world, and not just Iran, about the methods the U.S. have attained in collecting imagery intelligence from space.

Robert Deitz, a former lawyer at the CIA and the National Security Agency, said that Trump made a "serious mistake." Because of many reasons, "the Russians and the Chinese will be very happy to study this," he added.