The Minimes barracks in Paris don’t look like the future of cities. A staid brick-and-limestone complex established in 1925 along a backstreet in the Marais district, it’s the sort of structure you pass without a second glance in a place as photogenic as Paris.

Jim Jeffrey, the United States’ retiring Special Representative to Syria and the special envoy in the fight against the Islamic State, confirmed Thursday that he and other senior administration officials routinely misled President Donald Trump on troop levels.