The Afghanistan Bounty Report

I don’t understand why President Trump call it a ‘hoax’. There was such chatter in the intelligence community but it never made it to Trump.


President Trump said Wednesday that reports of Russia paying bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to kill U.S. troops and coalition forces in Afghanistan is a hoax, even as his administration continues to brief members of Congress on the matter.

"Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party. I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level," Trump said in an additional tweet.

The New York Times first reported that U.S. intelligence officials determined months ago that Russia had secretly offered bounties for successful attacks on coalition forces — including U.S. troops — in Afghanistan last year and that officials provided a written briefing of the finding to Trump in late February.

Trump said Sunday that the intelligence community told him he wasn't briefed about these allegations because it did not find the reports credible.

Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to receive a briefing Wednesday afternoon. Some congressional Democrats and Republicans were briefedon the issue this week by national security adviser Robert O'Brien and John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence.

told Mary Louise Kelly on NPR's All Things Considered that she would have preferred to receive the briefing alongside her Republican colleagues.

"In my experience, we should be receiving the same information whether you're Democrat or Republican," Slotkin said. "When it comes to the national security of the country, you know, we should all be putting politics aside and just getting the facts as we understand them."


Trump Calls Bounty Report A 'Hoax' Despite Administration's Briefing Of Congress

 

But White House’s response lends credibility to the account. They denied the report then denied a Trump was briefed. Was there such a report?

 

#BenedictDonald

 

Was there such a report?

Call it 'fake news', 'rumors' or whatever tickles your fancy but was there such a report?

They denied it first and then said it was dismissed. Which is it?

 

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has vowed that people would "go to jail" over reports that Russia offered the Taliban bounties for U.S. soldiers, during an interview with Trump supporter and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani released Friday.

"We know a crime was perpetrated," Meadows told Giuliani of The New York Times' bombshell report. "Whoever leaked this — they didn't even leak the whole story."


Meadows, the top aide to the president and a close confidant, said he expects a criminal investigation and prosecution.

"We're determined to get to the bottom of it," he said. "They're serious about the investigation."

The White House has spent recent days pushing back on the report and whether Trump himself had been briefed on the classified intelligence behind it.


The Times reported that the information was in President Donald Trump's daily briefing as early as February this year, but White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has repeatedly told reporters that the information never rose to the level of Trump's attention.

"There really wasn't anything," Meadows told Giuliani during the interview. "We don't have any intelligence that would support the reporting."


https://www.newsweek.com/top-trump-aide-vows-people-will-go-jail-over-russia-bounty-leaks-1515383

 

Was there such a report?

 

You are confused. If there was never such a report then there can't be leaks, and if there can't be leaks, there can't be criminal culpability

 

He is in self-destruction mode all by himself.

 

You don’t get it. White House denied existence of such a report, then belatedly admitted its was there but it never went all the way up to the president.

first question is whether there was such a report.