Wow.

Wow. And trump was briefed on this and didn’t do anything? Trash!!!!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-offered-afghans-bounty-kill-142839178.html

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.

The intelligence finding was briefed to President Donald Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

An operation to incentivize the killing of American and other NATO troops would be a significant and provocative escalation of what American and Afghan officials have said is Russian support for the Taliban, and it would be the first time the Russian spy unit was known to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops.

Any involvement with the Taliban that resulted in the deaths of American troops would also be a huge escalation of Russia’s so-called hybrid war against the United States, a strategy of destabilizing adversaries through a combination of such tactics as cyberattacks, the spread of fake news, and covert and deniable military operations.

The Kremlin had not been made aware of the accusations, said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. “If someone makes them, we’ll respond,” Peskov said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, denied that the insurgents have “any such relations with any intelligence agency” and called the report an attempt to defame them.

“These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” he said. “That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don’t attack them.”

Spokespeople at the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA declined to comment.

The officials familiar with the intelligence did not explain the White House delay in deciding how to respond to the intelligence about Russia.

While some of his closest advisers, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have counseled more hawkish policies toward Russia, Trump has adopted an accommodating stance toward Moscow.

At a summit in Helsinki in 2018, Trump strongly suggested that he believed Putin’s denial that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election, despite broad agreement within the U.S. intelligence establishment that it did. Trump criticized a bill imposing sanctions on Russia when he signed it into law after Congress passed it by veto-proof majorities. And he has repeatedly made statements that undermined the NATO alliance as a bulwark against Russian aggression in Europe.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the delicate intelligence and internal deliberations. They said the intelligence has been treated as a closely held secret, but the administration expanded briefings about it this week — including sharing information about it with the British government, whose forces are among those said to have been targeted.

The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals. The officials did not describe the mechanics of the Russian operation, such as how targets were picked or how money changed hands. It is also not clear whether Russian operatives had deployed inside Afghanistan or met with their Taliban counterparts elsewhere.

The revelations came into focus inside the Trump administration at a delicate and distracted time. Although officials collected the intelligence earlier in the year, the interagency meeting at the White House took place as the coronavirus pandemic was becoming a crisis and parts of the country were shutting down.

Moreover, as Trump seeks reelection in November, he wants to strike a peace deal with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan War.

Both American and Afghan officials have previously accused Russia of providing small arms and other support to the Taliban that amounts to destabilizing activity, although Russian government officials have dismissed such claims as “idle gossip” and baseless.

“We share some interests with Russia in Afghanistan, and clearly they’re acting to undermine our interests as well,” Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., commander of American forces in Afghanistan at the time, said in a 2018 interview with the BBC.

Though coalition troops suffered a spate of combat casualties last summer and early fall, only a few have since been killed. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked U.S. positions since a February agreement.

American troops have also sharply reduced their movement outside of military bases because of the coronavirus, reducing their exposure to attack.

While officials were said to be confident about the intelligence that Russian operatives offered and paid bounties to Afghan militants for killing Americans, they have greater uncertainty about how high in the Russian government the covert operation was authorized and what its aim may be.

Some officials have theorized that the Russians may be seeking revenge on NATO forces for a 2018 battle in Syria in which the U.S. military killed several hundred pro-Syrian forces, including numerous Russian mercenaries, as they advanced on an American outpost. Officials have also suggested that the Russians may have been trying to derail peace talks to keep the United States bogged down in Afghanistan. But the motivation remains murky.

The officials briefed on the matter said the government had assessed the operation to be the handiwork of Unit 29155, an arm of Russia’s military intelligence agency, known widely as the GRU. The unit is linked to the March 2018 nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury, England, of Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who had worked for British intelligence and then defected, and his daughter.

Western intelligence officials say the unit, which has operated for more than a decade, has been charged by the Kremlin with carrying out a campaign to destabilize the West through subversion, sabotage and assassination. In addition to the 2018 poisoning, the unit was behind an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016 and the poisoning of an arms manufacturer in Bulgaria a year earlier.

American intelligence officials say the GRU was at the center of Moscow’s covert efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. In the months before that election, American officials say, two GRU cyberunits, known as 26165 and 74455, hacked into Democratic Party servers, and then used WikiLeaks to publish embarrassing internal communications.

In part because those efforts were aimed at helping tilt the election in Trump’s favor, Trump’s handling of issues related to Russia and Putin has come under particular scrutiny. The special counsel investigation found that the Trump campaign welcomed Russia’s intervention and expected to benefit from it, but found insufficient evidence to establish that his associates had engaged in any criminal conspiracy with Moscow.

Operations involving Unit 29155 tend to be much more violent than those involving the cyberunits. Its officers are often decorated military veterans with years of service, in some cases dating to the Soviet Union’s failed war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Never before has the unit been accused of orchestrating attacks on Western soldiers, but officials briefed on its operations say it has been active in Afghanistan for many years.

Though Russia declared the Taliban a terrorist organization in 2003, relations between them have been warming in recent years. Taliban officials have traveled to Moscow for peace talks with other prominent Afghans, including the former president, Hamid Karzai. The talks have excluded representatives from the current Afghan government as well as anyone from the United States and at times have seemed to work at crosscurrents with U.S. efforts to bring an end to the conflict.

The disclosure comes at a time when Trump has said he would invite Putin to an expanded meeting of the Group of Seven nations, but tensions between U.S. and Russian militaries are running high.

In several recent episodes, in international territory and airspace from off the coast of Alaska to the Black and Mediterranean seas, combat planes from each country has scrambled to intercept military aircraft from the other.

And their punishment for that? Trump has been trying to get them back into the G7.

Pit and Milk, this is so freaking garbage.

this dude was briefed on all of this and STILL fought like crazy to get Russia back into the mix.

our president is such a freaking embarrassment. i dont even have to hold my nose for Biden anymore. its an easy decision.

Man, as soon as I think he can’t get any dumber, he proves me wrong.

Wow,what a shock.
No it isn't.The US did the same damn thing when Russia was stuck in that crap hole for 10 years.
We even supplied them Stingers to shot down their helos.That was a damn fine weapons system.Especially on helos.

Pd...thanks for the heads up on the dual post...

Trump is either in love Putin or Trump owes Putin a ton of money...probably both!

This is why Trump hates the media..most of the time, sooner or later, the truth will come out.

Wait to see what Trumps response is...it should be a good one.

Well, he wrapped a chain around his forearm and stood up to Corn Pop. We're so screwed.

jc...

Russian intelligence officers offered cash rewards to Taliban fighters to kill US, UK troops in Afghanistan, source says
(CNN)Russian intelligence officers for the military intelligence GRU recently offered money to Taliban militants in Afghanistan as rewards if they killed US or UK troops there, a European intelligence official told CNN.

By Nick Paton Walsh, Veronica Stracqualursi and Radina Gigova, CNN

Updated 6:22 PM ET, Sat June 27, 2020
link



The official was unclear as to the precise Russian motivation, but said the incentives had, in their assessment, led to coalition casualties. The official did not specify as to the date of the casualties, their number or nationality, or whether these were fatalities or injuries.

"This callous approach by the GRU is startling and reprehensible. Their motivation is bewildering," the official said.

This story was first reported by the New York Times.
US intelligence concluded months ago that Russian military intelligence offered the bounties, amid peace talks, the New York Times reported Friday.


Citing officials briefed on the matter, the Times reported that President Donald Trump was briefed on the intelligence findings and that the White House's National Security Council held a meeting about it in late March.


White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement Saturday that the President and Vice President Mike Pence were not briefed "on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence."


McEnany said her statement "does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story," which said Trump had been briefed.


McEnany did not deny the validity of the reported US intelligence that a Russian intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to carry out attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.


CNN has reached out to the Defense Department, the State Department, and the CIA, and has received no comment.


According to the Times, the Trump administration held expanded briefings about the intelligence assessment this week and shared information about it with the British government, whose forces were also believed to have been targeted.


The newspaper reported that officials thought of possible responses, including beginning with a diplomatic complaint to Moscow, a demand to cease, and sanctions -- but the White House has yet to authorize any action.


The Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, on Friday denounced the Times report as "baseless allegations" that have led to death threats against Russian diplomats in Washington and London.
"In the absence of reasons to #BlameRussians," the Times is inventing "new fake stories," the embassy wrote on Twitter.
The Taliban also rejected the Times report that they were offered bounties from Russia to target US troops in Afghanistan.


"We strongly reject this allegation. The nineteen-year Jihad of the Islamic Emirate is not indebted to the beneficence of any intelligence organ or foreign country and neither is the Islamic Emirate in need of anyone in specifying objectives," the militant group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement Saturday.


In its covert operation, the Russian spy unit within the intelligence agency GRU had offered rewards for successful attacks last year, and Islamist militants, or armed criminal associates, are thought to have collected bounty money, the Times reported.


The European official told CNN the Russian intelligence officers worked for the GRU unit known as 29155, which has been blamed by European intelligence officials previously for the attempted assassinations of Sergei Skripal, a former KGB agent who had once been recruited years earlier by British intelligence, and his daughter in 2018 in Salisbury, UK, and other prominent attacks in Europe.


The US concluded that the GRU was behind the interference in the 2016 US election and cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and top Democratic officials. The Russian military agency was also accused by the West of assassination attempts and poison attacks in Europe within recent years.
The Times reported that the motivations behind the operation are unclear and there's uncertainty of how far up in the Kremlin the operation was authorized.


The US intelligence assessment was said to be based in part from interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals, according to the newspaper.


Former Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday called Trump's presidency a "gift" to Putin, referring to the New York Times report at a town hall focused on Asian American Pacific Islander issues. "It's a betrayal of every single American family with a loved one serving in Afghanistan or anywhere overseas. I'm quite frankly outraged by the report, and if I'm elected president, make no mistake about it, Vladimir Putin will be confronted."


New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, on Saturday called for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put legislation sanctioning Russia for a vote on the chamber floor.


Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on House Foreign Affairs, said in a statement Saturday that he "immediately reached out to the Administration," adding that if the accusations in the New York Times report are true, the administration "must take swift and serious action to hold the Putin regime accountable."


Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, tweeted that "Russia is not a partner, and not to be negotiated with" and that Trump "needs to immediately expose and handle this, and stop Russia's shadow war."


Trump has sought to improve relations between Washington and Moscow and shares an unusually warm relationship with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.


But Trump and his administration point to US sanctions on Russia, arguing that he's been tougher on the country than previous presidents.


During a 2018 press conference alongside Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Trump, in a stunning move for an American president, refused to accept US intelligence that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, instead appearing to align with Putin's denials.


Last month, Trump said he wished to invite Russia to the G7 summit, despite Russia's suspension in 2014 from the working group of leading industrial nations for its annexation of Crimea.


In February, the US and Taliban signed a historic agreement in Dohar, Qatar, setting in motion the possible full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and potential end to America's longest-fought war.


US troops are currently serving in Afghanistan as part of a US-led NATO mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces and focus on counterterrorism operations targeting the local ISIS affiliate and al Qaeda.


The Trump administration is close to finalizing a decision to withdraw more than 4,000 troops from Afghanistan by the fall, according to two administration officials. The move would reduce the number of troops from 8,600 to 4,500 and would be the lowest number since the very earliest days of the war in Afghanistan.


This story has been updated with additional reaction, a statement from the White House press secretary and information from a European intelligence official.


CNN's Karen Smith, Sarah Mucha, Nicky Robertson and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.

Speechless. There is no defending this. You can't claim to stand for the military and vets while allowing things like this to happen and then keeping it hush hush. I wouldn't expect him to start a war over this, but he should have damn well sanctioned Russia over it at a minimum.

trump does things like this all the time!

FAKE NEWS!

"The United States receives thousands of intelligence reports a day and they are subject to strict scrutiny. While the White House does not routinely comment on alleged intelligence or internal deliberations, the CIA Director, National Security Advisor, and the Chief of Staff can all confirm that neither the President nor the Vice President were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence," Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, said in a statement. "This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter.”

Putin is playing tUSA like a fiddle

j/c...

I swear, it's the only explanation.

Is that a camera on top of a combine harvesting a wheat field?

Yes

Well, especially at night, that's exactly what it looks like. Even more so with the new lights on combines.

You probably know but I’ll tell you anyway just in case. Rocket is alluding to Trump getting a golden shower by a Russian prostitute. That came out of the fake Russian dossier.

j/c...

Yeah, Mark... I'm sure your colleague, Gloria Allred, is searching high and low for as many Bowe Bergdahl's as she can find. A little top dollar incentive from Soros and the funder of the Steele Dossier, Hillary Clinton, and another hoax is in the making, with plenty of willing paid witnesses on tap.

Are you just naming people you don't like?

This post reads like a Glenn Beck conspiracy theory board....

Most of the posts from conservatives here do.

Steve Schmidt

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1276921172685238273.html



The CAO’s ( Casualty Assistance Officer’s) will arrive at the doorstep of an American family. There are always two and they will be dressed immaculately in the dress uniform of their service branch. It is their solemn duty to deliver the news that an American soldier, sailor, airman or marine has been killed in action.

The body or the remaining parts will be packed in ice and placed in an aluminum casket. The casket will be draped in the flag of the United States of America. It will be carried aboard a military aircraft past service members
standing at attention and saluting their fallen comrade. That plane will land at Dover, Delaware and the family will be their to receive their loved one.

Their will be an honor guard that caries the casket to the waiting hearse past service members standing at attention and saluting. From the moment of death the body will have never been unaccompanied. There will be a military funeral. Taps will be played and three volleys

Of rifle fire will crack the air. The flag will be folded and then presented to a young widow or widower on behalf of a grateful nation. The Russians will pay the bounty for the dead American to an Afghan warlord. The President of the United States knows this but he chooses

To do worse than nothing. He rewards the Russians. He fights for their interests. He fights to have them rejoin the G-7. He delights them by withdrawing American forces from Germany. He puts his illiberal cronies in charge of VOA. He doesn’t care about the dead American
Soldier.

Trump went West Point and saw the young officers who will soon be targeted for death by Russian money. The cowardly Republican Senators will say nothing. They are too afraid to be tweeted at by Trump.

The whole rancid lot apologists, collaborators and silent weaklings needs to be repudiated by the righteous rage of the American people in November. @ProjectLincoln

No we didn’t do the same damn thing. Get a clue. Suppling weapons is not exactly the same as paying out bounty money on Russian heads. Talk about acting deranged. You can’t possibly support this crap? And trump swept it under the flipping carpet. How disgusting.

Ye of little faith. Just watch em. Trump and his supporters are already deflecting and blaming Hillary, Biden, and Obama.

From the comment section in NYT;
Says it well

LT - Chicago
BAD: A Russian spy unit secretly offered bounties to militants in Afghanistan for killing American troops, U.S. intelligence officials found.

SO MUCH WORSE: The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what, if anything, to do about the intelligence assessment.

Trump is quick to demand States "Dominate" the streets when the streets are filled with Black American protesters, he is quick to tear gas Americans legally and peacefully protesting outside the White House so he can beclown himself in a photo-op.

But he can't make a decision, can't even rouse himself to tweet out a warning when Putin has his spy's pay militants to kill Americans? Was his push-back removing U.S. troops from Germany? Further undermining NATO?

Trump has not "adopted an accommodating stance toward Moscow". He is not standing at all. He is completely supine, unable or unwilling or too compromised to protect American interests against authoritarian regimes.

There is no bottom to this Presidency. No end to the treachery.

Read somewhere this morning, The Trump Admin is denying he was briefed.

Of course.

If that’s really true which I doubt, it makes it even worse for trump. Poor trump and his supporters are going to have to find a substantial spin on this one.

Trump is claiming that nobody briefed him on this situation.

which then begs the question: who's in charge?

lets not forget, its already been more than verified that he barely pays attention to intelligence briefings to begin with, and doesnt bother to read the intel reports either.

so who is in charge? Jared Kushner? trump is either incompetent or ignorant, and both is destructive to our country.

Hey he didnt know and he takes no responsibility. It's all good

First of all,I don't concern myself with Trump and his buffoonery.
secondly,the CIA were running dark ops out of Afganistan for the duration of the Russian occupation.What,exactly,there were doing who knows.But I would venture a guess and say paying bounty money would be rather tame.
For reference,one needs to look at Desert Strom,with the Iraqi faces on playing cards,wanted dead or alive posters with reward money offered for capture or death.That's kinda the same thing.
i'll not waste time with you.Your hatred of TRump has relieved you of all your sensibilities.

You mean that dossier that many things contained it were proven to be true?

bc...not quite the same, comparing playing cards to bounties...

You see, the guy paying to have American soldiers killed is one of the best buds with the commander in chief of America's military.

Trump made his choice, siding with his buddy Putin while pretending to support our soldiers in Afghanistan.

Our soldiers in Afghanistan didn't know that their own CIC was also their enemy, doing nothing to stop Putin from offering bounties for American bodies.

BTW, there isn't anyone that believes Trump and Pence were not briefed...that excuse just won't fly!

Well didn't you know that targeting top officials in a terrorist organization that attacked our nation is the same thing as putting a bounty on any and every America troop on the battle field?

And I don't think they did us favors in response. Like Trump is doing Russia trying the get them back into the G7 which will give them more say on the world stage. I mean rewarding them is certainly in order after this, right?

I'm sorry boys,I have taken the narrow view of just the bounty hunting and excluded the Trump part.
Silly me,I should have known that just the mentioning of his name would set all you boys into a tizzy.
I'll retire now.

So then advocating that Russia be admitted back into the G7 is an appropriate response to this? Just asking for a friend.

Sidestepping the issue by saying "Trump" is no response to the situation at hand whatsoever.

kompromat.
if it isn't the peepee tape, it's something just as skeevy.

So now he says he wasn't briefed on this.. OK lets believe him.

So, now he knows, what's he going to do about it?

*Republicans

As of now I would have to agree. Trump is no conservative.

j/c...

I mean there are several possibilities ...

The news is fake? Seems unlikely as it's now confirmed by the Brits.

The news wasn't important enough to reach the POTUS ears? Doubtful.

The news was deliberately kept from Trump because the military and the intel agencies think he's unpredictable, unstable or just dangerous? Plausible.

He knew, did nothing and he is lying about not knowing. Plausible.

And now he knows his response is ???? Probably something loud and vocal with zero follow through and action.

j/c...

Russian bounties to Taliban-linked militants resulted in deaths of U.S. troops, according to intelligence assessments

By
Ellen Nakashima, Karen DeYoung, Missy Ryan and John Hudson
June 28, 2020 at 8:00 p.m. EDT

Russian bounties offered to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several U.S. service members, according to intelligence gleaned from U.S. military interrogations of captured militants in recent months.

Several people familiar with the matter said it was unclear exactly how many Americans or coalition troops from other countries may have been killed or targeted under the program. U.S. forces in Afghanistan suffered a total of 10 deaths from hostile gunfire or improvised bombs in 2018, and 16 in 2019. Two have been killed this year. In each of those years, several service members were also killed by what are known as “green on blue” hostile incidents by Afghan security forces sometimes believed to have been infiltrated by the Taliban.

The intelligence was passed up from the U.S. Special Operations forces based in Afghanistan and led to a restricted high-level White House meeting in late March, the people said.

The meeting led to broader discussions about possible responses to the Russian action, ranging from diplomatic expressions of disapproval and warnings, to sanctions, according to two of the people. These people and others who discussed the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity.

The disturbing intelligence — which the CIA was tasked with reviewing, and later confirmed — generated disagreement about the appropriate path forward, a senior U.S. official said. The administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, preferred confronting the Russians directly about the matter, while some National Security Council officials in charge of Russia were more dismissive of taking immediate action, the official said.

It remained unclear where those discussions have led to date. Verifying such intelligence is a process that can take weeks, typically involving the CIA and the National Security Agency, which captures foreign cellphone and radio communications. Final drafting of any policy options in response would be the responsibility of national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien.

The CIA assessment took some time, and coincided with the scaling back and slowing down of a number of government functions as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, two people said.

Asked to comment, John Ullyot, an NSC spokesman, said that “the veracity of the underlying allegations continue to be evaluated.” The CIA and the Defense and State departments declined to comment.

Russia and the Taliban have denied the existence of the program.

Among the coalition of NATO forces in Afghanistan, the British were briefed late last week on the intelligence assessment, although other alliance governments were not formally informed. The New York Times first reported the existence of the bounty program on Friday evening.

But as more details have unfolded, the primary controversy in Washington over the weekend revolved around denials by President Trump and his aides that the president was ever briefed on the intelligence.

Trump on Sunday confirmed statements by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and the White House press secretary that he received no briefing on the subject, and he referred in tweets to “so-called reports” by “Fake News.”

“Nobody briefed or told me, [Vice President] Pence or Chief of Staff [Mark Meadows] about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an ‘anonymous source’ by the Fake News . . . Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us,” Trump said on Twitter, insisting that “nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump administration.”

But his Twitter remarks did little to clarify whether the administration was denying that the assessment existed, or simply denying that Trump knew anything about it. Richard Grenell, who served as acting director of national intelligence until last month, tweeted that “I never heard this. And it’s disgusting how you continue to politicize intelligence.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday joined other lawmakers — including leading Republicans — in expressing concern and calling for the administration to provide Congress with an explanation.

“This is as bad as it gets, and yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score, denies being briefed,” Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“But he wants to ignore,” she said, “he wants to bring them back to the G-8 despite the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, despite what they yielded to [Putin] in Syria, despite [Russian President Vladimir Putin’s] intervention into our election, which is well documented by our intelligence community and despite now possibly this allegation, which we should have been briefed on.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump ally who golfed with the president Sunday, earlier tweeted that “I expect the Trump Administration to take such allegations seriously and inform Congress immediately as to the reliability of these news reports.”

In a second tweet, Graham said it was “Imperative Congress get to the bottom” of the Russian offer “to pay the Taliban to kill American soldiers with the goal of pushing America out of the region.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the third-highest-ranking member of the House GOP leadership, also took to Twitter on Sunday to say that if the report of Russian bounties “is true, the White House must explain” why the president wasn’t briefed, who did know and when, and “what has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin responsible.”

A third person familiar with the issue said that “I don’t think that anybody withheld anything and screwed up by not getting to the president on time.” Until “you were absolutely sure of the intelligence and the NSC had drawn up policy options, you weren’t going to walk into the Oval Office,” the person said.

So the issue is not when the president was briefed, but rather, “now that you are aware of it, what are you going to do about it? That’s where the focus should be.”

In years past, there were persistent reports that Russia was supplying small arms to the Taliban. Carter Malkasian, who served as a senior adviser to the previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., said Russia had cultivated a relationship with certain Taliban elements, largely in northern Afghanistan, beginning around 2015. The outreach was partly as a response to Moscow’s concerns about the threat posed by Islamic State militants in the region, and also a desire to see U.S. troops leave the region.

But more recently, U.S. officials said that Russia — which tried and failed to start its own Afghan peace process — has been cooperative and helpful since the Taliban signed a peace deal, including a plan for U.S. withdrawal, with the administration early this year.

Malkasian, now a scholar at CNA, said the bounty operation, if true, could be a “random” initiative, rather than one that reflected a well-coordinated program ordered by the highest levels of the government.

He said that a primary Russian goal in Afghanistan continues to be the exit of American forces, but not at any cost.

“They may want us out, and they may be happy to see a few Americans die,” he said, “but I don’t think they want to see the Taliban take over.”

Ellen Nakashima is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering intelligence and national security matters for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 1995 and is based in Washington.

Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for The Post. In more than three decades at the paper, she has served as bureau chief in Latin America and in London and as correspondent covering the White House, U.S. foreign policy and the intelligence community.

Missy Ryan writes about the Pentagon, military issues and national security for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2014 from Reuters, where she reported on U.S. national security and foreign policy issues. She has reported from Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

John Hudson is a national security reporter at The Washington Post covering the State Department and diplomacy. He has reported from a mix of countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, and Georgia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...01dc_story.html

Not surprised at all. No low too low for DJT.

SOOOO he didnt know ..... Now He knows, What is going to do about it? He always says he is tougher on Russia than any President. Your move trump protect our troops from Russia.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/spi...4Uci?li=BBnb4R7

Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops


WASHINGTON — United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter.


The crucial information that led the spies and commandos to focus on the bounties included the recovery of a large amount of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals played a central role in making the intelligence community confident in its assessment that the Russians had offered and paid bounties in 2019, another official has said.


Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter

Armed with this information, military and intelligence officials have been reviewing American and other coalition combat casualties since early last year to determine whether any were victims of the plot. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked American positions since a February agreement to end the long-running war in Afghanistan.

The details added to the picture of the classified intelligence assessment, which The New York Times reported Friday has been under discussion inside the Trump administration since at least March, and emerged as the White House confronted a growing chorus of criticism on Sunday over its apparent failure to authorize a response to Russia.

Mr. Trump defended himself by denying the Times report that he had been briefed on the intelligence, expanding on a similar White House rebuttal a day earlier. But leading congressional Democrats and some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that, according to officials, the administration has yet to authorize.

The president “needs to immediately expose and handle this, and stop Russia’s shadow war,” Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote on Twitter.

Appearing on the ABC program “This Week,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had not been briefed on the intelligence assessment and had asked for an immediate report to Congress. She accused Mr. Trump of wanting “to ignore” any charges against Russia.

“Russia has never gotten over the humiliation they suffered in Afghanistan, and now they are taking it out on us, our troops,” she said of the Soviet Union’s bloody war there in the 1980s. “This is totally outrageous. You would think that the minute the president heard of it, he would want to know more instead of denying that he knew anything.”

Spokespeople for the C.I.A., the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon declined to comment on the new findings. A National Security Council spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Though the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, claimed on Saturday that Mr. Trump had not been briefed about the intelligence report, one American official had told The Times that the report was briefed to the highest levels of the White House. Another said it was included in the President’s Daily Brief, a compendium of foreign policy and national security intelligence compiled for Mr. Trump to read.

Ms. McEnany did not challenge The Times’s reporting on the existence of the intelligence assessment, a National Security Council interagency meeting about it in late March and the White House’s inaction. Multiple other news organizations also subsequently reported on the assessment.

The officials briefed on the matter said that the assessment had been treated as a closely held secret but that the administration expanded briefings about it over the last week — including sharing information about it with the British government, whose forces were among those said to have been targeted.

Republicans in Congress demanded more information from the Trump administration about what happened and how the White House planned to respond.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking House Republican, said in a Twitter post on Sunday: “If reporting about Russian bounties on U.S. forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed? Was the info in the PDB? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?”

Multiple Republicans retweeted Ms. Cheney’s post. Representative Daniel Crenshaw, Republican of Texas and a former member of the Navy SEALs, amplified her message, tweeting, “We need answers.”

In a statement in response to questions, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he had long warned about Russia’s work to undermine American interests in the Middle East and southwest Asia and noted that he wrote an amendment last year rebuking Mr. Trump’s withdrawal of forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

“The United States needs to prioritize defense resources, maintain a sufficient regional military presence and continue to impose serious consequences on those who threaten us and our allies — like our strikes in Syria and Afghanistan against ISIS, the Taliban and Russian mercenary forces that threatened our partners,” Mr. McConnell said.

Aides for other top Republicans either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday, including Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican; Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; and Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In addition to saying he was never “briefed or told” about the intelligence report — a formulation that went beyond the White House denial of any formal briefing — Mr. Trump also cast doubt on the assessment’s credibility, which statements from his subordinates had not.

Specifically, he described the intelligence report as being about “so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians”; the report described bounties paid to Taliban militants by Russian military intelligence officers, not direct attacks. Mr. Trump also suggested that the developments could be a “hoax” and questioned whether The Times’s sources — government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity — existed.

Mr. Trump then pivoted to attack former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who criticized the president on Saturday for failing to punish Russia for offering bounties to the Taliban, as well as Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, who is the target of unsubstantiated claims that he helped a Ukrainian energy firm curry favor with the Obama administration when his father was vice president.

“Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “With Corrupt Joe Biden & Obama, Russia had a field day, taking over important parts of Ukraine — Where’s Hunter?”

American officials said the Russian plot to pay bounties to Taliban fighters came into focus over the past several months after intelligence analysts and Special Operations forces put together key pieces of evidence.

One official said the seizure of a large amount of American cash at one Taliban site got “everybody’s attention” in Afghanistan. It was not clear when the money was recovered.

Two officials said the information about the bounty hunting was “well known” among the intelligence community in Afghanistan, including the C.I.A.’s chief of station and other top officials there, like the military commandos hunting the Taliban. The information was distributed in intelligence reports and highlighted in some of them.

The assessment was compiled and sent up the chain of command to senior military and intelligence officials, eventually landing at the highest levels of the White House. The Security Council meeting in March came at a delicate time, as the coronavirus pandemic was becoming a crisis and prompting shutdowns around the country.

A former American official said the intelligence analyst who briefs the president and the national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, working with his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, would have been involved in any decision to brief Mr. Trump on Russia’s activities. The director of the C.I.A., Gina Haspel, might have also weighed in, the former official said.

Ms. McEnany cited all three of those senior officials in her statement saying the president had not been briefed.

National security officials have tracked Russia’s relationship with the Taliban for years and determined that Moscow has provided financial and material support to senior and regional Taliban leaders.

While Russia has at times cooperated with the United States and appeared interested in Afghan stability, it often seems to work at crosscurrents with its own national interest if the result is damage to American national interests, said a former senior Trump White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security assessments.

Revenge is also a factor in Russia’s support for the Taliban, the official said. Russia has been keen to even the scales after a bloody confrontation in 2018 in Syria, when a massive U.S. counterattack killed hundreds of Syrian forces along with Russian mercenaries nominally supported by the Kremlin.

“They are keeping a score sheet, and they want to punish us for that incident,” the official said.

Both Russia and the Taliban have denied the American intelligence assessment.

Ms. Pelosi said that if the president had not, in fact, been briefed, then the country should be concerned that his administration was afraid to share with him information regarding Russia.

Ms. Pelosi said that the episode underscored Mr. Trump’s accommodating stance toward Russia and that with him, “all roads lead to Putin.”

“This is as bad as it gets, and yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score, denies being briefed,” she said. “Whether he is or not, his administration knows, and some of our allies who work with us in Afghanistan have been briefed and accept this report.”

John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, said on “This Week” that he was not aware of the intelligence assessment, but he questioned Mr. Trump’s response on Twitter.

“What would motivate the president to do that, because it looks bad if Russians are paying to kill Americans and we’re not doing anything about it?” Mr. Bolton said. “The presidential reaction is to say: ‘It’s not my responsibility. Nobody told me about it.’ And therefore to duck any complaints that he hasn’t acted effectively.”

Mr. Bolton said this summed up Mr. Trump’s decision-making on national security issues. “It’s just unconnected to the reality he’s dealing with.”

Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Charlie Savage, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Michael Schwirtz and Michael D. Shear.

j/c...

Who will be the "select few?"

“Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking House Republican, said in a Twitter post on Sunday: “If reporting about Russian bounties on U.S. forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed? Was the info in the PDB? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?”

Multiple Republicans retweeted Ms. Cheney’s post. Representative Daniel Crenshaw, Republican of Texas and a former member of the Navy SEALs, amplified her message, tweeting, “We need answers.”

This is big can we get trump for treason on this?

The headline should read...
‘trump circling wagons with his cronies to get the lies straight before anyone speaks on the topic publicly.’

Notice how all the GOPERS like 40 cent and fish aren’t responding just saying fake news. Waiting on their bot walking orders from trump’s spin doctors to move forward. Lol Everybody is lying except trump. Pffft.

Now after 3 and a half years are republicans finally starting to grow a backbone with trump because they don’t want to lose their own jobs in 4 months. I doubt it and it is too late

well obviously the solution is to hold a summit here in the states and invite Putin over.

Possibly beginning to speak up (under anonymity) because they don't think Trump will be in the Oval Office in a few months is not "growing a backbone".

The summary of your post...Trump is UNQUALIFIED to be the commander in chief over our soldiers, especially soldiers in Afghanistan.

I refuse to believe Trumps lies...too many times Trump has used the excuse...he didn't know or know one told me!

He might try getting his ass off his golf cart and start reading his intelligence briefs...soldiers lives are at stake and each soldier has a name!

Now that Trump has been briefed...what is he going to do about it?

Senators aim to limit Trump's ability to remove troops from Germany
By Jordain Carney - 06/29/20 03:19 PM EDT

A bipartisan group of senators is trying to place limits on President Trump's ability to remove troops from Germany unless the administration is able to meet a slew of requirements.

The proposal, spearheaded by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), would prohibit the administration from reducing the number of active-duty troops in Germany below 34,500 unless the Pentagon can certify to Congress that it is in the national security interest of the United States and would not negatively undermine European alliances or NATO.

It would also require the Defense secretary to certify that the move would not impact the U.S. military's ability to "execute contingency plans," wouldn't negatively impact ongoing operations, won't impact military families and that the Pentagon has consulted with allies including NATO and Germany.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) are co-sponsoring the proposal.

The senators want to get it included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a mammoth defense policy bill set to be debated by the Senate this week. Hundreds of amendments are filed to the NDAA every year but only a handful normally end up getting a roll-call vote on the floor.

In addition to Romney's amendment, Graham filed a separate proposal throwing the Senate's support behind the U.S.-Germany relationship.

"The presence of United States military forces in Germany is a strong deterrent against Russian aggression in Europe and strengthens the capability of NATO," Graham's resolution reads.

Trump confirmed earlier this month that he would cut the number of U.S. service members in Germany to 25,000, a decision that has been met with bipartisan scrutiny.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/50507...ps-from-germany

Who would benefit if Trump reduced the troop strength in Germany?


Russia welcomes prospect of US troop pullback from Germany

June 11, 2020
link


MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday welcomed President Donald Trump’s reported plan to withdraw more than a quarter of U.S. troops from Germany, saying it would help bolster security in Europe.

Trump has reportedly signed off on a plan to cut the number of troops stationed in Germany from 34,500 to no more than 25,000.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “we would welcome any steps by Washington to scale down its military presence in Europe.”

“Such steps would undoubtedly help reduce confrontational potential and ease military and political tensions in the Euro-Atlantic region,” Zakharova said at a briefing, adding that the large U.S. military presence in Germany is a “vestige of the Cold War.”

Zakharova challenged the U.S. to also take its tactical nuclear weapons home from Germany.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters earlier this week that Berlin hadn’t yet been informed of any U.S. troops pullout. She warned that if the U.S. goes ahead the move would do more harm to NATO as a whole than to Germany’s own defense.

Relations between Russia and the West are at post-Cold War lows following the 2014 Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and other issues.

Moscow has described the deployment of NATO forces near Russian borders as a top security threat.

Zakharova strongly warned Washington against redeploying some of the troops from Germany to Poland, saying it would further exacerbate tensions and undermine prospects of dialogue between Russia and NATO.

Poland, for one...

Interesting answer. Can you explain how/why?

A couple off the top:

- elevate Poland's status/importance

- financial impact

j/c...

Charlie Savage
@charlie_savage
BREAKING: Undercutting WH claims that Trump was never briefed on suspected Russian bounty operation & info was not solid enough to tell him about, it was in his written briefing (PDB) 4 months ago - likely Feb 27 - & was circulated broadly in IC on May 4.


Trump Got Written Briefing in February on Possible Russian Bounties, Officials Say

The investigation into Russia’s suspected operation is said to focus in part on the killings of three Marines in a truck bombing last year, officials said.
By Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, Nicholas Fandos and Adam Goldman
June 29, 2020
Updated 10:10 p.m. ET

American officials provided a written briefing in late February to President Trump laying out their conclusion that a Russian military intelligence unit offered and paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, two officials familiar with the matter said.

The investigation into the suspected Russian covert operation to incentivize such killings has focused in part on an April 2019 car bombing that killed three Marines as one such potential attack, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter.

The new information emerged as the White House tried on Monday to play down the intelligence assessment that Russia sought to encourage and reward killings — including reiterating a claim that Mr. Trump was never briefed about the matter and portraying the conclusion as disputed and dubious.

But that stance clashed with the disclosure by two officials that the intelligence was included months ago in Mr. Trump’s President’s Daily Brief document — a compilation of the government’s latest secrets and best insights about foreign policy and national security that is prepared for him to read. One of the officials said the item appeared in Mr. Trump’s brief in late February; the other cited Feb. 27, specifically.

Moreover, a description of the intelligence assessment that the Russian unit had carried out the bounties plot was also seen as serious and solid enough to disseminate more broadly across the intelligence community in a May 4 article in the C.I.A.’s World Intelligence Review, a classified compendium commonly referred to as The Wire, two officials said.

A National Security Council spokesman declined to comment on any connection between the Marines’ deaths and the suspected Russian plot. The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, did not answer when pressed by reporters on Monday whether the intelligence was included in the written President’s Daily Brief, and the security council spokesman pointed to her comments when asked later about the February written briefing.

Late on Monday, John Ratcliffe, the recently confirmed director of national intelligence, issued a statement warning that leaks about the matter were a crime.

“We are still investigating the alleged intelligence referenced in recent media reporting, and we will brief the president and congressional leaders at the appropriate time,” he said. “This is the analytic process working the way it should. Unfortunately, unauthorized disclosures now jeopardize our ability to ever find out the full story with respect to these allegations.”

The disclosures late on Monday came amid a growing furor in Washington over the revelations in recent days that the Trump administration has known for months about the intelligence conclusion but the White House had authorized no response to Russia.

Top Democrats in the House and Senate demanded all members of Congress be briefed, and the White House summoned a small group of House Republicans friendly to the president to begin explaining its position.

The lawmakers emerged saying that they were told the administration was reviewing reporting about the suspected Russian plot to assess its credibility, and that the underlying intelligence was conflicting, echoing comments from the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, that the information in the assessment had not been “verified” because, she said without detail, there were “dissenting opinions” among analysts or agencies.

“There was not a consensus among the intelligence community,” Ms. McEnany said. “And, in fact, there were dissenting opinions within the intelligence community, and it would not be elevated to the president until it was verified.”

But in denying that Mr. Trump was briefed, administration officials have been coy about how it is defining that concept and whether it includes both oral briefings and the President’s Daily Brief. “He was not personally briefed on the matter,” Ms. McEnany told reporters when asked specifically about the written briefing. “That is all I can share with you today.”

Mr. Trump is said to often neglect reading that document, preferring instead to receive an oral briefing summarizing highlights every few days. Even in those face-to-face meetings, he is particularly difficult to brief on national security matters, and at times asks questions the intelligence. He often relies instead on conservative media and friends for information, current and former intelligence officials have said.

American intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan officials in Afghanistan began raising alarms as early as January, and the National Security Council convened an interagency meeting to discuss the problem and what to do about it in late March, The Times has previously reported. But despite being presented with options, including a diplomatic protest and sanctions, the White House authorized no response.

The administration’s explanations on Monday, in public and in private, appeared to be an attempt to placate lawmakers, particularly Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans, alarmed by news reports in recent days revealing the existence of the intelligence assessment and Mr. Trump’s insistence he had not been warned of the suspected Russian plot.

The assessments pointing to a Russian scheme to offer bounties to Taliban-linked militants and criminals were based on information collected in raids and interrogations on the ground in Afghanistan, where military American commanders came to believe Russia was behind the plot, as well as more sensitive and unspecified intelligence that came in over time, an American official said.

Officials said there was disagreement among intelligence officials about the strength of the evidence about the suspected Russian plot and the evidence linking the attack on the Marines to the suspected Russian plot, but they did not detail those disputes.

Notably, the National Security Agency, which specializes in hacking and electronic surveillance, has been more skeptical about interrogations and other human intelligence, officials said.

Typically, the president is formally briefed when the information has been vetted and seen as sufficiently credible and important by the intelligence professionals. Such information would likely be included in the President’s Daily Brief.

Former officials said that in previous administrations, allegations of such profound importance — even if the evidence was not fully established — were conveyed to the president. “We had two threshold questions: ‘Does the president need to know this' and ‘why does he need to know it now,’” said Robert Cardillo, a former senior intelligence official who briefed former President Barack Obama from 2010 to 2014.

David Priess, a former C.I.A. daily intelligence briefer and the author of “The President’s Book of Secrets. The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents,” said: “Many intelligence judgments in history have not had the consensus of every analyst who worked on it. That’s the nature of intelligence. It’s inherently dealing with uncertainty.”

Both Mr. Cardillo and Mr. Priess said previous presidents received assessments on issues of potentially vital importance even if they had dissents from some analysts or agencies. The dissents, they said, were highlighted for the president to help them understand uncertainties and the analytic process.

Lawmakers demanded to see the underlying material for themselves.

“This is a time to focus on the two things Congress should be asking and looking at: No. 1 Who knew what, when, and did the commander in chief know? And if not, how the hell not?” said Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, each requested that all lawmakers be briefed on the matter and for C.I.A. and other intelligence officials to explain how Mr. Trump was informed of intelligence collected about the plot.

The White House began explaining its position directly to lawmakers in a carefully controlled setting. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence; and Robert C. O’Brien, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, briefed a handful of invited House Republicans. A group of House Democrats was scheduled to go to the White House on Tuesday morning to receive a similar briefing.

There was no indication after the session with Republicans whether they had been told that the information was included in Mr. Trump’s written briefing four months ago. But afterward, two of the Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Mac Thornberry of Texas, said that they “remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces” and would need additional briefings.

“It has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan,” they said in a joint statement. “We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces.”

Other Republicans who attended the briefing were more sanguine. In an interview, Representative Chris Stewart of Utah said that he saw nothing unusual about the purported decision not to orally inform Mr. Trump, particularly when the situation did not require the president to take immediate action.

“It just didn’t reach the level of credibility to bring it to the president’s attention,” he said, adding that military and intelligence agencies should continue to scrutinize Russia’s activities.

The Associated Press first reported that the intelligence community was examining the deaths of the three Marine reservists: Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, 43, of Newark, Del.; Cpl. Robert A. Hendriks, 25, of Locust Valley, N.Y.; and Sgt. Benjamin S. Hines, 31, of York, Pa.

They were killed when a vehicle laden with explosives hit their truck, wounding an Afghan contractor as well. The huge blast set fire to the truck, engulfing those inside in flames, while their fellow Marines tried to extricate them, a defense official said. A brief firefight ensued.

Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the former police chief of Parwan Province, where Bagram Airfield is, said that the Taliban there hire freelancers from local criminal networks, often blurring the lines of who carried out what attacks. He said the Taliban’s commanders are only based in two districts of the province, Seyagird and Shinwari, and from there they coordinate a more extensive network that largely commissions the services of criminals.

The Taliban has denied involvement. And a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, told NBC News on Monday that reports of the Russian scheme were incorrect. He said that “none of the American representatives have ever raised this question with their Russian counterparts through government or diplomatic channels.”

The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, declined to comment on any connection between the Marines’ deaths and the suspected Russian plot. Mr. Hoffman also declined to say whether or when Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper was briefed on the intelligence assessment and whether the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan resulted from the Russian bounties. Col. DeDe Halfhill, a spokeswoman for Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also declined to comment on the same questions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/us/politics/trump-russia-plot-afghanistan.html

“This is the analytic process working the way it should. Unfortunately, unauthorized disclosures now jeopardize our ability to ever find out the full story with respect to these allegations.”

Such bs. Because it was leaked and found out about. We can’t possibly figure out what actual happened. My head is spinning

Maybe he should be briefed through the short form twitter platform. Something his mind can absorb. Or a ‘fake Faux News’ (well that’s redundant) talking head program. All the cuts, and scrolls, dingy soulless blondes, and other bells and whistles that draw his eyes like a stupid moth to a deadly flame. Tailor the message to the low IQ of the recipient. Maybe then he’d remember these REALLY IMPORTANT things.

Worst. president. Ever.

Ahhh... there's the rub.

Dude is well-documented by both (non-partisan) career functionaries and (partisan) WH staff (speaking on condition of anonymity) to not bother with the Daily Briefings.

It also follows his pattern of not listening to Professional People who actually know wtf they're talking about.

1. He didn't listen to His Generals. His Generals are all gone.
2. He didn't listen to his Medical Experts. His Medical Experts were shoved to the side.
3. He fiddled, while the CoronaVirus burned... through 120,000 American lives. Now, his CoronaVirus experts are barely heard from, as numbers spike in every corner of the country. Even in 'Trump Country.'
4. He didn't listen to The Intelligence Industry when they told him that Russia was a past and ongoing threat.
5. He didn't listen to the outgoing admin, when they told him about Micheal Flynn.
6. He didn't listen when the outgoing admin briefed his crew that runaway viral infection was a National Security issue, while informing them about the mission of the Pandemic Response Team. His gang smirked their way through the briefings, tossed the reports into the trash can... and then, Assterisk45* dismantled the very team that was best equipped handle the current crisis.... -a full year before Our Country needeed to get atop this pandemic.

It took me all of 3 minutes to bang out this stream-of-consciousness litany of failures and ineptitude without even trying. I'll stop at 5, because I could probably type for another 45 minutes nonstop about his failings, which are legion. They all reek of the same consistent aroma, because they all come from the same point of origin:

He instinctively mistrusts/hates serious people of acumen and expertise...
-and that trait has a direct influence on the decisions that get made for our entire country.

I saw this coming when he started chewing his way through the primary roster. I envisioned a tenure of exactly the kind of stuff that made his campaign as it was. Our Reality was laid bare before us during the 2015-16 primary. That was America's vetting opportunity, right there.

America knew this D00D wasn't a deep thinker.
And they had ample evidence that he wasn't deep in character, either. Traits that were always deemed essential in a POTOS... until now.

Steaks, vodka, real estate scams, bankrupt casinos ( ), unaccredited "universities," stiffed contractors, you name it- we've seen it all...

...a lowlife managed to scam his way into 1600 PennAve.

_____________

Newspaper revelations such as this should no longer surprise anyone, no matter what one's politics might be. This person has a 40-year public history of shallowness, myopia, venality and moral bankruptcy... traits about which he was proud enough to put into a self-congratulatory book that he lacked the discipline and acumen to actually write himself.

His character has been on public display for almost a half-century.
America knew what he was.

None of this should surprise anyone... even his most ardent supporters.

We got what we elected.

I shake my damned head slowly.

...It was Joe Biden's son offering the bounties....

AP sources: White House aware of Russian bounties in 2019

By JAMES LaPORTA
4 minutes ago
link

Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.

The assessment was included in at least one of President Donald Trump’s written daily intelligence briefings at the time, according to the officials. Then-national security adviser John Bolton also told colleagues he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.

The White House didn’t respond to questions about Trump or other officials’ awareness of Russia’s provocations in 2019. The White House has said Trump wasn’t — and still hasn’t been — briefed on the intelligence assessments because they haven’t been fully verified. However, it’s rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of a doubt before it is presented to top officials.

Bolton declined to comment Monday when asked by the AP if he’d briefed Trump about the matter in 2019. On Sunday, he suggested to NBC that Trump was claiming ignorance of Russia’s provocations to justify his administration’s lack of response.

“He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it,” Bolton said.

The revelations cast new doubt on the White House’s efforts to distance Trump from the Russian intelligence assessments. The AP reported Sunday that concerns about Russian bounties also were in a second written presidential daily briefing this year and that current national security adviser Robert O’Brien had discussed the matter with Trump. O’Brien denies doing that.

On Monday, O’Brien said that while the intelligence assessments regarding Russian bounties “have not been verified,” the administration has “been preparing should the situation warrant action.”

The administration’s earlier awareness of the Russian efforts raises additional questions about why Trump didn’t take punitive action against Moscow for efforts that put the lives of American service members at risk. Trump has sought throughout his time in office to improve relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, moving this year to try to reinstate Russia as part of a group of world leaders it had been kicked out of.

Officials said they didn’t consider the intelligence assessments in 2019 to be particularly urgent, given Russian meddling in Afghanistan isn’t a new occurrence. The officials with knowledge of Bolton’s apparent briefing for Trump said it contained no “actionable intelligence,” meaning the intelligence community didn’t have enough information to form a strategic plan or response. However, the classified assessment of Russian bounties was the sole purpose of the meeting.

The officials insisted on anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose the highly sensitive information.

The intelligence that surfaced in early 2019 indicated Russian operatives had become more aggressive in their desire to contract with the Taliban and members of the Haqqani Network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2012 during the Obama administration.

The National Security Council and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence held meetings regarding the intelligence. The Pentagon declined to comment, and the NSC didn’t respond to questions about the meetings.

Concerns about Russian bounties flared anew this year after members of the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known to the public as SEAL Team Six, raided a Taliban outpost and recovered roughly $500,000 in U.S. currency. The funds bolstered the suspicions of the American intelligence community that Russians had offered money to Taliban militants and linked associations.

The White House contends the president was unaware of this development, too.

The officials told the AP that career government officials developed potential options for the White House to respond to the Russian aggression in Afghanistan, which was first reported by The New York Times. However, the Trump administration has yet to authorize any action.

The intelligence in 2019 and 2020 surrounding Russian bounties was derived in part from debriefings of captured Taliban militants. Officials with knowledge of the matter told the AP that Taliban operatives from opposite ends of the country and from separate tribes offered similar accounts.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Russian intelligence officers had offered payments to the Taliban in exchange for targeting U.S. and coalition forces.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Taliban’s chief negotiator, a spokesman for the insurgents said Tuesday, but it was unknown whether there was any mention during their conversation of allegations about Russian bounties. Pompeo pressed the insurgents to reduce violence in Afghanistan and discussed ways of advancing a U.S.-Taliban peace deal signed in February, the Taliban spokesman tweeted.

The U.S. is investigating whether Americans died because of the Russian bounties. Officials are focused on an April 2019 attack on an American convoy. Three U.S. Marines were killed after a car rigged with explosives detonated near their armored vehicles as they returned to Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military installation in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department identified them as Marine Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, 43, of Newark, Delaware; Sgt. Benjamin Hines, 31, of York, Pennsylvania; and Cpl. Robert Hendriks, 25, of Locust Valley, New York. They were infantrymen assigned to 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines, a reserve infantry unit headquartered out of Garden City, New York.

Hendriks’ father told the AP that even a rumor of Russian bounties should have been immediately addressed.

“If this was kind of swept under the carpet as to not make it a bigger issue with Russia, and one ounce of blood was spilled when they knew this, I lost all respect for this administration and everything,” Erik Hendriks said.

Three other service members and an Afghan contractor were wounded in the attack. As of April 2019, the attack was under a separate investigation, unrelated to the Russian bounties.

The officials who spoke to the AP also said they were looking closely at insider attacks from 2019 to determine if they were linked to Russian bounties.

___

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Deb Riechmann in Washington, Deepti Hajela in New York and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Fixed for ya.

j/c...

Hey!
Where all my TrumpHumpers© at?

Who will be the first to step up and defend this ish?



Worst.
President.
Ever.

I'm not sure how well some people understand geopolitics. Do we want Trump to start World War III?

How reliable is the intelligence? Are the U.S. and Russia using back channels together to try to figure out what the heck is going on? Something does appear to be going on, but it seems more narrative than hard facts at this point. Is Chinese (insert other country that would benefit from U.S.-Russian tension) (counter)intelligence involved?

Having it play out in the media could very well have been orchestrated by a 3rd party.

Trump may still be handling it like an idiot (and probably is), but jumping into a fight with a nuclear power on the basis of scant intelligence is probably something to avoid, especially until all the facts are known. Sanctioning a country for something they end up not having done could definitely be the first step towards open conflict.

j/c - I forgot the old "It doesn't matter - what was Trump supposed to do" ... sort of like the "who knew it would be so tough"

Yeah, some make it sound as if further sanctions and public outrage wasn't an alternative.

It was WW3 or nothing.

Data on Financial Transfers Bolstered Suspicions That Russia Offered Bounties

Analysts have used other evidence to conclude that the transfers were likely part of an effort to offer payments to Taliban-linked militants to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

By Charlie Savage, Mujib Mashal, Rukmini Callimachi, Eric Schmitt and Adam Goldman
June 30, 2020, 1:20 p.m. ET

American officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, which was among the evidence that supported their conclusion that Russia covertly offered bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.

Though the United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before, analysts concluded from other intelligence that the transfers were most likely part of a bounty program that detainees described during interrogations. Investigators also identified by name numerous Afghans in a network linked to the suspected Russian operation, the officials said — including, two of them added, a man believed to have served as an intermediary for distributing some of the funds and who is now thought to be in Russia.

The intercepts bolstered the findings gleaned from the interrogations, helping reduce an earlier disagreement among intelligence analysts and agencies over the reliability of the detainees. The disclosures further undercut White House officials’ claim that the intelligence was too uncertain to brief President Trump. In fact, the information was provided to him in his daily written brief in late February, two officials have said.

Afghan officials this week described a sequence of events that dovetails with the account of the intelligence. They said that several businessmen who transfer money through the informal “hawala” system were arrested in Afghanistan over the past six months and are suspected of being part of a ring of middlemen who operated between the Russian intelligence agency, known as the G.R.U., and Taliban-linked militants. The businessmen were arrested in what the officials described as sweeping raids in the north of Afghanistan, as well as in Kabul.

A half-million dollars was seized from the home of one of the men, added a provincial official. The New York Times had previously reported that the recovery of an unusually large amount of cash in a raid was an early piece in the puzzle that investigators put together.

The three American officials who described and confirmed details about the basis for the intelligence assessment spoke on condition of anonymity amid swelling turmoil over the Trump administration’s failure to authorize any response to Russia’s suspected proxy targeting of American troops and downplaying of the issue after it came to light four days ago.

White House and National Security Council officials declined to comment, as did the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe. They pointed to statements late Monday from Mr. Ratcliffe; the national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien; and the Pentagon’s top spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman. All of them said that recent news reports about Afghanistan remained unsubstantiated.

On Monday, the administration invited several House Republicans to the White House to discuss the intelligence. The briefing was mostly carried out by three Trump administration officials: Mr. Ratcliffe, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Mr. O’Brien. Until recently, both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Ratcliffe were Republican congressmen known for being outspoken supporters of Mr. Trump.

That briefing focused on intelligence information that supported the conclusion that Russia was running a covert bounty operation and other information that did not support it, according to two people familiar with the meeting. For example, the briefing focused in part on the interrogated detainees’ accounts and the earlier analysts’ disagreement over it.

Both people said the intent of the briefing seemed to be to make the point that the intelligence on the suspected Russian bounty plot was not clear cut. For example, one of the people said, the White House also cited some interrogations by Afghan intelligence officials of other detainees, downplaying their credibility by describing them as low-level.

The administration officials did not mention anything in the House Republican briefing about intercepted data tracking financial transfers, both of the people familiar with it said.

Democrats and Senate Republicans were also separately briefed at the White House on Tuesday morning. Democrats emerged saying that the issue was clearly not, as Mr. Trump has suggested, a “hoax.” They demanded to hear directly from intelligence officials, rather than from Mr. Trump’s political appointees, but conceded they had not secured a commitment for such a briefing.

Based on the intelligence they saw, the lawmakers said they were deeply troubled by Mr. Trump’s insistence he did not know about the plot and his subsequent obfuscation when it became public.

“I find it inexplicable in light of these very public allegations that the president hasn’t come before the country and assured the American people that he will get to the bottom of whether Russia is putting bounties on American troops and that he will do everything in his power to make sure that we protect American troops,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

He added: “I do not understand for a moment why the president is not saying this to the American people right now and is relying on ‘I don’t know,’ ‘I haven’t heard,’ ‘I haven’t been briefed.’ That is just not excusable.”

Mr. Ratcliffe was scheduled to go to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet privately with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, an official familiar with the planning said.

The Times reported last week that intelligence officials believed that a unit of the G.R.U. had offered and paid bounties for killing American troops and other coalition forces and that the White House had not authorized a response after the National Security Council convened an interagency meeting about the problem in late March.

Investigators are said to be focused on at least two deadly attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan. One is an April 2019 bombing outside Bagram Air Base that killed three Marines: Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, 43, of Newark, Del.; Cpl. Robert A. Hendriks, 25, of Locust Valley, N.Y.; and Sgt. Benjamin S. Hines, 31, of York, Pa.

On Monday, Felicia Arculeo, the mother of Corporal Hendriks, told CNBC that she was upset to learn from news reports of the suspicions that her son’s death arose from a Russian bounty operation. She said she wanted an investigation, adding that “the parties who are responsible should be held accountable, if that’s even possible.”

Officials did not say which other attack is under scrutiny.

In claiming that the information was not provided to him, Mr. Trump has also dismissed the intelligence assessment as “so-called” and claimed he was told that it was “not credible.” The White House subsequently issued statements in the names of several subordinates denying that he had been briefed.

The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, reiterated that claim on Monday and said that the information had not been elevated to Mr. Trump because there was a dissenting view about it within the intelligence community.

But she and other administration officials demurred when pressed to say whether their denials encompassed the president’s daily written briefing, a compendium of the most significant intelligence and analysis that the intelligence community writes for presidents to read. Mr. Trump is known to often neglect reading his written briefings.

Intelligence about the suspected Russian plot was included in Mr. Trump’s written President’s Daily Brief in late February, according to two officials, contrasting Mr. Trump’s claim on Sunday that he was never “briefed or told” about the matter.

The information was also considered solid enough to be distributed to the broader intelligence community in a May 4 article in the C.I.A.’s World Intelligence Review, commonly called The Wire, according to several officials.

A spokesman for the Taliban has also denied that it accepted Russian-paid bounties to carry out attacks on Americans and other coalition soldiers, saying the group needed no such encouragement for its operations. But one American official said the focus has been on criminals closely associated with the Taliban.

In a raid in Kunduz City in the north about six months ago, 13 people were arrested in a joint operation by American forces and the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, according to Safiullah Amiry, the deputy provincial council chief there. Two of the main targets of the raid had already fled — one to Tajikistan and one to Russia, Mr. Amiry said — but it was in the Kabul home of one of them where security forces found a half-million dollars. He said the Afghan intelligence agency had told him the raids were related to Russian money being dispersed to militants.

Two former Afghan officials said Monday that members of local criminal networks have carried out attacks for the Taliban in the past — not because they share the Taliban’s ideology or goals, but in exchange for money.

In Parwan Province, where Bagram Airfield is, the Taliban are known to have hired local criminals as freelancers, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the former police chief of the province. He said the Taliban’s commanders are based in two districts of the province, Seyagird and Shinwari, and that from there they coordinate a network that commissions criminals to carry out attacks.

And Haseeba Efat, a former member of Parwan’s provincial council, also said the Taliban have hired freelancers in Bagram district — including one of his own distant relatives in one case.

“They agree with these criminals that they won’t have monthly salary, but they will get paid for the work they do when the Taliban need them,” Mr. Efat said.

Twenty American service members were killed in combat-related operations in Afghanistan last year, the most since 2014.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/russian-bounties-afghanistan-intelligence.html

This is crap. Why would the Russians pay these people for something they've been happily doing for free for years?

To help undermine our efforts to create peace in Afghanistan?

It's not that complicated.

Once again, why? The Russians have no love for afghans. They basically lost the Soviet Union due to their involvement there. Besides, they don't need to be paid.

So are you saying we weren't in peace talks with the Taliban? Are you saying the Russians have nothing to gain by keeping the U.S bogged down in foreign wars?

You can't be serious right now can you?

Never said anything of the sort, and I still wonder how much parsing you do of my every word to come up with such nonsense.

You asked why Russia would do this? I made it easy to understand why. And this was all you could come up with?

Divert Deflect Deny and Lie

--------------------------------------------
Trump 2020 / MAWA / Make America White Again

Talk about disrespecting American military and the flag by ignoring bounties on the heads of soldiers from Russia!

On the other hand, some make it sound like Putin was getting severed heads mailed to him in boxes and he was personally signing checks and delivering them to the return addresses, all of which was photographed and the evidence handed personally to Trump along with a 3 hour in depth presentation.

Once proven, public outrage is an option. Sanctions would then be an option. For now, private outrage might be more appropriate until the facts are determined. Once you jump, you can't really stop in mid air if new facts come to light.

People like to rush to judgment, though. No matter how many times it comes out that early indications were deceiving, people like to keep jumping to conclusions with only a miniscule portion of the whole picture.

“To date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports. Regardless, we always take the safety and security of our forces in Afghanistan—and around the world—most seriously and therefore continuously adopt measures to prevent harm from potential threats,” Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

I'm just curious, since actual Data intercepts showed GRU-to-Taliban $ transfers & a key intermediary fled to Russia, how much evidence are you waiting for?

Since it has been shown that this information was contained in a White House briefing, what else do you need to form a conclusion?

I mean if you are waiting to see film of a Russian diplomat handing a Taliban leader some cash that's not going to happen.

Now if your question is in regards to Trump actually reading his daily briefings because he simply doesn't care what the hell is really going on, we may be in agreement.

j/c...



Russians squeeze U.S. troops in Syria amid uproar over Trump’s dealings with Moscow

The dispute over intelligence about bounty payments in Afghanistan is exposing a deep rift in the government over how to handle Russia.

By LARA SELIGMAN and BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN
06/30/2020 02:00 PM EDT

Russian forces are encroaching on U.S. troop-controlled territory in eastern Syria — part of what officials say is a deliberate campaign to squeeze the U.S. military out of the region, according to two current U.S. officials and one former U.S. official.

The growing friction between U.S. and Russian troops in Syria comes against a backdrop of deepening mistrust between the national security community and President Donald Trump’s White House over dealings with Moscow. The tension burst into the open last week with revelations that Russia’s secretive military intelligence service offered bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. Lawmakers demanded answers this week amid bipartisan anger that the Trump administration has known about the bounties for months but has not yet authorized a response to Russia.

Trump has denied being briefed on the bounties, but a Western defense official confirmed the arrangement to POLITICO. Other administration officials have said the intelligence is still being evaluated and have criticized the media for reporting on the issue.

The disclosure of the bounty program has highlighted emerging frictions between the U.S. and Russia in other areas, including in Syria.

For years, the two countries have at times supported opposing sides in the long-running civil war — with Moscow propping up Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Washington eventually supporting Kurdish fighters who have pushed for de facto autonomy from the regime. Yet over the course of the war, the U.S. and Russian militaries have communicated regularly in order to deconflict their respective forces on the crowded Syrian battle space. In the first years of the Trump administration, the White House even pushed the Pentagon to increase cooperation with the Russian military in Syria, three former Trump administration officials said.

The directive was disturbing to some members of the national security community, given that Russia has committed war crimes against civilians in Syria.

“They told us we needed to work with Russia and not just ignore them,” said one of the former officials. “We did it, but limited it to just [deconfliction].”

Clashes between Russian and U.S. forces in Syria have rarely turned violent, with one notable exception. In a bloody four-hour battle in 2018, American commandos killed 200-300 pro-Syrian government forces, including Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group.

Recently, however, American military leaders in Syria are facing increasingly frequent brushes with Russian troops, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official. Russia is deploying its forces closer and closer to U.S. positions in the Deir Ezzor region of eastern Syria, and the two militaries interact multiple times a week, if not daily, compared to roughly monthly last year, the people said.

So far, the two sides have been able to defuse these incidents without violence, said one U.S. military officer. But one of the U.S. officials said Russia and its Syrian and Iranian partners are trying to pressure the U.S. out of Syria altogether.

For instance, earlier this month, Breaking Defense reported that Russian and American troops had a standoff that lasted for hours in northeast Syria. A U.S. official confirmed the incident to POLITICO but said it was nonviolent. Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported last month that the Russian military was building a new base in northern Syria near the Turkish border.

The encroachments in Syria fit into a broader pattern of Russian attempts to test the U.S. commitment to remaining in the broader Middle East. National security experts say the Russian bounty program in Afghanistan is part of that effort.

Like in Syria, the Trump White House initially pushed the Pentagon and intelligence community to engage with the Russians in Afghanistan, said a former Trump defense official. During development of the Pentagon’s South Asia strategy for Afghanistan in 2017, the National Security Council asked defense officials “to look for ways to actively cooperate” with Moscow, particularly in the northern part of the country, the former official said.

“Everyone was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, we aren’t cooperating with the Russians, that’s crazy,” the former official said. One proposal was to have the Russian military run counterterrorism operations in northern Afghanistan. “DOD had to roll in pretty hard opposing the idea,” the official said.

Until 2015, the NATO coalition had an agreement in place with Moscow on a logistics route through Russia, central Asia and the Caucuses, called the northern distribution network, that carried as much as 40 percent of supplies for the coalition’s operations in Afghanistan. But Russia shut down the route in 2015.

Yet the recent reporting about Russia’s bounty program suggests Moscow is now testing U.S. resolve in Afghanistan, said Doug London, a former CIA officer and non-resident scholar with the Middle East Institute. Absent pushback from the White House, London said, “they will just continue to escalate until checked.”

Intelligence and defense officials have become increasingly embittered about the White House’s approach to Moscow, particularly regarding the repeated request to increase cooperation with the Russian military, according to four former Trump administration officials, several of whom requested anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.

From the beginning, the Trump White House wanted “a reset with Russia,” which included counterterrorism cooperation, said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA official who retired in 2019. Even so, Moscow consistently rebuffed their efforts, he said.

“This was a nonstop request as part of the administration's oft-stated and well-publicized desire to engage with Moscow,” Polymeropoulos said. “While we once again attempted to engage the Russians, the effort as had always been the case was futile. There was never any gain to the U.S. in this endeavor."

In the days after Trump’s election, incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn immediately tried to increase cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in the region, with the stated goal of fighting terrorism.

“You know that the strategic goal is stability in the Middle East,” he told then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in a conversation about a U.N. Security Council vote on Israeli settlements. “That’s the strategic goal. And, and, you know, between you and I, and you know this, and we know this, you know between Moscow and Washington. We will not achieve stability in the Middle East without working with each other against this radical Islamist crowd. Period.”

Flynn was ousted from the Trump administration in its early days, but his vision of closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russia lived on.

Initially shocked, Pentagon and intelligence officials quickly grew to resent requests for closer cooperation with the Kremlin and to question White House motives, the people said. After an election that the intelligence community determined had seen unprecedented campaign meddling by Russia, officials were especially wary of the new administration and its friendly stance toward Moscow.

“I don’t think the [intelligence community] trusts the White House at all,” said one former Trump administration official. “Not with information, and not to make the right decisions.”

Syria is one place where the Pentagon and White House officials have repeatedly clashed.

Senior defense officials twice pushed back on Trump’s efforts to withdraw U.S. forces from northeast Syria, once in late 2018 — prompting the resignation of then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis — and again in October, 2019, enabling a deadly Turkish invasion of Kurdish-held territory and prompting harsh criticism of the administration for abandoning the Kurds. Both times, the national security community eventually succeeded in convincing the White House to maintain a small force there.

Now that Assad has mostly won the war in the rest of the country, he has turned his attention to Kurdish-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country, where several hundred U.S. troops and their Kurdish partners are still fighting ISIS and guarding the region’s rich oil fields. The tactic has led to some of the emerging conflicts between American and Russian troops.

Back in Washington, Trump has mostly lashed out at the media over the recent reports about Russia’s behavior.

Some national security veterans say it reflects Trump’s long-standing rhetorical approach to Moscow. Since the beginning of his presidency, the commander in chief has repeatedly second-guessed and denigrated the intelligence agencies on issues related to Russia, including its meddling in U.S. elections.

Trump has also sometimes responded negatively to information in his daily intelligence briefings that presented Russia in a bad light, according to a former White House official. Over the course of 2017, briefers would choose not to highlight negative material about Russia when verbally briefing the president, the official said. That included intelligence about Russian activity in Syria that was detrimental to American troops or interests.

“I don’t remember a thing that involved Russia that people were comfortable discussing with the president,” the former official said. “Even at the most senior level, at the Cabinet level, it would be like drawing sticks to see who would have to raise a Russia issue with him.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/30/russians-us-troops-syria-uproar-trump-345584

Is there any proof of this is what im asking?

Trump probably hasn't been briefed about it.

In the 21st century, "wars" are fought as much with information and disinformation as they are with munitions and ordinance.

Where was the intercept from? What exactly did it say?
It's possible to plant money trails.

How did this volatile information that was undoubtedly highly classified end up in the hands of the press?

What other money trails are there? Say one to a politician with access to sensitive information with an ax to grind from another foreign government or perhaps simply a greedy politician and a "news"paper executive.

Lol, I've been reading the Jason Bourne series recently.

We don't know what we don't know. *shrug*

And we do know what we do know. Just listing rhetorical questions doesn't change what we do know unless you just try and make up a bunch of conspiracy theories. Which seems a pretty popular method when trying to dismiss facts.

bad...when I clicked on your post, there was a blank square..I didn't know you were posting the same video I posted.

It's all good, dawg...

Why are you still here? I thought you felt too oppressed as a white make to post on DawgTalkers anymore.

White House says Trump has now been briefed on Russian bounty intel

BY MORGAN CHALFANT - 06/30/20 04:06 PM EDT
link

President Trump has now been briefed on intelligence regarding Russian bounties on coalition forces in Afghanistan, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday.

McEnany confirmed during a press briefing that Trump had been briefed on the matter, but emphasized that there is still not a “consensus” in the intelligence community regarding the information.

“The president has been briefed on what is unfortunately in the public domain because of The New York Times,” she told reporters. “But that does not change the fact that there is no consensus on this intelligence that still has yet to be verified.”

McEnany vociferously criticized the Times, which first reported on the intelligence on Friday, for publishing what she described as unverified information, saying it damages the U.S. government’s ability to collect intelligence.

The Times first reported Friday that Russia covertly offered payments to Taliban-linked militants for successful attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. The White House has denied that Trump or Vice President Pence were personally briefed on the matter prior to reports about the intelligence.

Subsequent reports have said the information was included in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a written classified document summarizing intelligence given to Trump daily. McEnany has declined to confirm whether the information was in the PDB.

Trump is known not to read the written briefs and prefers to receive oral briefings a handful of times a week.

DEVELOPING...

“The president has been briefed on what is unfortunately in the public domain because of The New York Times,”

Why is that unfortunate? If it wasnt brought up by the Times he would still be in the dark about possible a national security issue that effects our troops. I guess blinders are better.

Bravo.

Standing applause.

Yes, plenty of proof...

The CIA Director, National Security Advisor, and the Chief of Staff can all confirm that neither the President nor the Vice President were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.

Also...

“To date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports."

Mothers of military sons killed in Afghanistan want probe of Russian death bounties
PUBLISHED MON, JUN 29 20205:27 PM EDTUPDATED 5 HOURS AGO


Dan Mangan
@_DANMANGAN
link

KEY POINTS

The mother of a Marine killed last year in Afghanistan wants an investigation of reports that her son and two other Marines may have been the targets of Taliban-linked fighters who collected a bounty on U.S. soldiers offered by a Russian military intelligence unit.

Felicia Arculeo, whose son Cpl. Robert Hendriks died in the April 8, 2019, attack, also told CNBC “that the parties who are responsible should be held accountable, if that’s even possible.”

Also upset by the news reports was Shawn Gregoire, a Chicago woman whose son, Army Spc. Michael Isaiah Nance, was fatally shot July 29, 2019, with another soldier, Pfc. Brandon Jay Kreischer, in Afghanistan by an Afghan soldier who was being trained by U.S. military.

The mothers of two members of the U.S. military killed in Afghanistan last year say they want a thorough investigation of reports that a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked fighters for the deaths of American soldiers.

One of service members was among three Marines who died in an attack that reports have said may have been related to a bounty that was actually paid.

Felicia Arculeo, whose son Cpl. Robert Hendriks died in the April 8, 2019, attack, also told CNBC “that the parties who are responsible should be held accountable, if that’s even possible.”

Arculeo, who lives in Long Island, N.Y., said she has not been contacted by U.S. intelligence or military officials since Friday.

That was the day that The New York Times broke the news that American intelligence agencies had assessed that a Russian intelligence unit last year offered bounties to Islamist fighters in Afghanistan who killed U.S. soldiers.

Another mom, Shawn Gregoire, whose Army paratrooper son Spc. Michael Isaiah Nance was killed last July in a so-called insider attack by an Afghan soldier in Tarin Kowt, in southern Afghanistan, said she and other parents of killed soldiers should have been notified of the intelligence about the bounties.

No reports have identified her son’s death as a possible case of a Russian-bounty-motivated killing.

But Gregoire said the fact that the attack was committed by an insider, who was captured after the shooting, makes her suspicious that a bounty may have played a role.

“I really want someone to get to the bottom of this,” Gregoire told CNBC.

The Times has also reported that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the intelligence months ago, but as of yet had not decided on whether or how to retaliate against Russia after being presented with a menu of options. The Associated Press, meanwhile, reported that Trump was briefed on the alleged bounties in March 2019, the month before Hendriks and the two other Marines were killed.

Other news outlets, including NBC News, have confirmed that there is intelligence backing up the claim that a Russian unit offered bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

“I just happened to randomly see” the news about the report, Arculeo said.

“I got pretty upset.”

Her 25-year-old son, Hendriks, and the other two Marines, Sgt. Benjamin Hines, 31, and 43-year-old Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, were killed by a car bomb near Bagram Air Field. The three Marines, who had been assigned to the 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, died just days before they were scheduled to return home from Afghanistan.

On Sunday, The Associated Press reported that officials said the intelligence community was investigating whether the attack was linked to the suspected Russian bounty offer.

An official familiar with the intelligence told NBC News that the United States has gathered information showing that Russian operatives paid bounties for killing American soldiers to the Taliban, and that members of the U.S. military, along with Afghan civilians, died as a result of attacks launched to collect those cash rewards.

Arculeo said that the possible link of the attack that killed her son to Russian bounties should continue to be probed despite the White House’s claim that the intelligence about the bounties is not verified.

“Absolutely, that should be investigated,” she said.

Asked what should be done if it is determined that Russia paid a bounty for the killing of her son, Arculeo said, “Look, that’s a tough question.”

“At the end of the day, my son is still gone. He’s still not coming home,” she said.

Gregoire, whose son was known by his middle name, Isaiah, was fatally shot July 29, 2019, with another soldier, Pfc. Brandon Jay Kreischer, by an Afghan soldier who was being trained by U.S. military.

Nance, who was 24 years old, was on the verge of re-enlisting in the Army, where he served with the 82nd Airborne, for another three-year-stint, and planned to make the military his career, his mom said.

“I had so many different reactions,” Gregoire told CNBC on Tuesday morning, about reading the news about the possible bounties on Saturday.

“Extremely emotional, to anger and sadness. It just brought me back to July 2019 all over again.”

“Just angry that I had to find out there’s a possible link ... through the media,” Gregoire said.

She said she is “wondering if there’s some truth to this and if these attacks could have been prevented.”

The Times has reported that Trump was briefed last February about intelligence regarding the alleged bounties. The Associated Press on Monday night, citing officials with direct knowledge of the matter, also reported that the White House was aware of the matter much earlier, in early 2019. Then-national security advisor John Bolton told colleagues that he briefed Trump on the matter in March 2019, the AP added.

“I saw that” AP report, Gregoire said.

“And I really want someone to get to the bottom of this,” she added. “Even if he was not briefed, what’s happening now?”

“What are you doing now, now that you know?” Gregoire asked, referring to Trump.

“This is still an issue,” she said. “We still have women and men over there sacrificing their lives, and if Russia is a problem ...” she said.

Gregoire said that nearly a year after her son’s killed she has yet to receive the after action report about his death.

“What was pretty devastating to me was this were the questions have: who is this person, why did he do it?” Gregoire said. “To not have this report and to wake up and [see the news about the bounties], I feel somebody should have warned me.”

Gregoire said she has contacted the office of Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who herself is a military veteran, to get answers.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany on Monday told reporters, “There was not a consensus among the intelligence community” about whether the bounty payments were offered.

“And, in fact, there were dissenting opinions within the intelligence community, and it would not be elevated to the president until it was verified,” McEnany said.

Trump in a tweet Sunday wrote, “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or” to Vice President Mike Pence.

Democratic leaders in Congress demanded that the Trump administration brief both the House and the Senate on the intelligence related to the bounties.

“The questions that arise are: was the President briefed, and if not, why not, and why was Congress not briefed,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and CIA chief Gina Haspel.

“Congress and the country need answers now,” Pelosi said in the letter.

Trump is not going to sweep his Russian bounty problem under the rug without answering the family members of the victims.

Also, active duty and veterans are outraged and they want answers. Veterans voted for Trump 2 to 1 and if they don't get answers from Trump that make sense, the military vote might break for Biden.

This is not going away....

Funny that - I mean an old man gets knocked to the ground by police in Buffalo and Trump invents and tweets a theory that the man's part of Antifa or some such and was trying to block police frequencies .... yet we have British and US intel what the Russians are doing and ....

And the Trump faithful cannot wait to create excuses for him. smh

love your BS

It is odd isn't it? Trump sticks up for confederate monuments and Putin. Maybe that's what MAGA really means.

j/c...

Donald J. Trump trotting out the "hoax" gem again.

J\C
The MSM left trotting out Russia again..."Tell Vlad i,ll have more flexibility after my election" wasnt TRUMP it was guess who lefties? lol.

Well since Covid 19 was a hoax surely his followers will believe him again, right?

Then why weren't the above mentioned people allowed to speak with Democratic Reps? Why was only the white house staff allowed to brief the Dems? Tell me 40, What is Trump hiding?

Covid is a hoax because you guys are accusing Trump for its devastation and not your and simple Bidens beloved China SMH

No we’re blaming trump’s complete lack of leadership in steering this country through a pandemic. I could give a rats arse where it started. It’s here. He failed. Own it.

The real gem here is you guys falling for another hoax!

Lets see now...

There was Collusion.
Then The Steele Dossier.
Then Ukraine.
Now this.

Hook, Line and Sinker!

Lol.

You are living proof that denial isn't just a river that flows through Egypt.

You forgot to mention the fake Coronavirus and the fake 120,000 and counting death toll.

It's not a hoax...those soldiers are "dead"!

We know Trump's #1 priority is protecting Putin rather than protecting our own soldiers. The first excuse was Trump wasn't briefed..BUT,then John Bolton told the truth, that he briefed Trump on subject of bounties in early 2019.

Trumps excuse, I wasn't briefed just went down the crapper.

So Trump falls back on his old, lame excuse, "it's just a hoax"...and that is enough for some who don't give a damn about our soldiers serving in harms way.

Trump and his administrations lack of concern for our own soldiers serving in Afghanistan is just another example of Trumps priorities...Putin owns Trump.

You fell for the same crap the Left has been pulling for four years now...

A mid level, never-Trumper in Intel illegally leaks something that is possible to the New York Times or Washington post to damage Trump.

The NYT writes an emotional and outlandish story of Trump dropping the ball on Russia.

The Dems in Washington react with outrage, demanding investigations.

And you guys bite, hook line and sinker.

Only to later find out, to this day, the intel may be true but is completely unsubstantiated! No Proof, just theory.

Trump and Pence were never briefed because it wasn't verified.

Some may believe Germany's Merkel is sleeping with Putin but until it is verified, the President's time is not wasted with the gossip. But if some guy in the CIA decides to leak the gossip to the Times, it will be on again!

Shame!

j/c...

You have continued falling for every word that comes out of a habitual liars mouth for years now. You have no room to preach at anyone else. Better luck next time Comrade.

It is still not substantiated.
It is still not verified.
It is still not proven.

If ever it is, I have no doubt we will punish Russia.

Are you waiting for the 8x10 color glossy photos?

Putin is winning this battle plus trump is scared of Putin.

And 40, like Trump, sides with the Russians.

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


You just can’t make this stuff up.


https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/885909588...ing-of-congress

I told you they wanted to catch Biden's son red-handed. But now the covert op has been blown by the NYT.

Not to belittle or anything of the sort, covid, but I think the u.s. is now at about 130,000 dead. Out of 320,000,000 million.

Maybe I'm not doing the math right, but I think that comes out to about a tenth of a percent.

Correct me if I'm wrong on that - and maybe I am wrong?

And there you have it folks!

The math is close enough for government work but there are 2 things you are forgetting.

1, the number of deaths continues to rise so that percentage is going to continue to increase.

2, we literally changed the world to keep that 130,000 down. and i mean literally

Cool.

The number of people testing positive is, uh.......according to headlines, running rampant. Increasing in unbelievable fashion.

So, let's double the death count. That would be 2/10ths of a percent. That's 0.002 .


I'm not discounting that any death, from covid or any other cause, is sad. Just trying to state facts.

I think you also might be missing the fact that the cdc has said cases are probably 10 times higher than reported. The asymptomatic. Factor that in to the 1/10th, or even 2/10ths of a percent, and it makes it literally nothing.

Look, I don't want to get it. No one does.

I find it interesting that no one has disputed the numbers. Course, it would be hard to dispute.

Didn't miss that. Just didn't find it relevant to what we were discussing.
If true, and I would not be surprised if it is, it doesn't increase the denominator, it changes what you are measuring.

Your 1st post was percentage of deaths per total population. The new number would be percentage of deaths out out of those infected.

Which would make the percentage of death go down.

The numbers are hard dispute because we all know they are inaccurate but are the most accurate that we have.

Issues are that we have been inadequate in our testing. Inadequate in our contact tracing and testing them. And the variable reliability of various testing modalities. Perhaps other reasons as well.

So, if the cdc is correct saying the positives could be 10 times higher than what we know, we're doing pretty damn well?

HEY BOYS...question...

How much is a dead American soldier worth to Trump's best buddy, Putin?

BTW, this thread is not about covid-19...jussayn!

So, you think the Afgans only killed because of some bounty? Seriously?

Obviously they were going to fight no matter what. But if you think that is a defense for Trump and company, you would be wrong. That's the problem with Trump supporters, anything and everything is alright since y'all need to justify your 2016 vote.

This is the Afghan contractor who delivered Russian cash to the Taliban: report

Published 12 mins ago on July 1, 2020
By Sarah K. Burris
link

According to the New York Times, Afghan contractor Rahmatullah Azizi was the one who delivered cash from the Russian GRU to the Taliban for their pledge to kill American soldiers for the Russians.

“He was a lowly drug smuggler, neighbors and relatives say,” about Azizi. Then he started working on projects that involved funneling money into projects in Afghanistan.

“As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia,” the Times reported. “What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.”

Officials in both the U.S. and Afghanistan have been warning about the scheme for years. But it was only after the Times broke the story, that elected officials, including President Donald Trump, seemed to learn about it.

According to Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi, who appeared on MSNBC Wednesday, the funds were being sent from Russia regardless of whether the Taliban followed through with killing soldiers or not. There was no report back to the GRU about casualties. The money continued to flow.

“None of those interviewed who know Mr. Azizi were surprised when his associates were raided about six months ago and one of his brothers taken into custody with the half a million dollars in cash,” said the Times. “As one of his friends put it, he had gone from ‘not even having a blanket’ to having multiple houses, fancy cars, and security escorts.”

Story continued

arc...honestly, I doubt that you care how our soldiers are killed in Afghanistan.

If you take the time to read up on some of the things that might motivate an Afghan killer, you might be able to answer your own question.

they've turned into quite the little factory, haven't they?

The death toll tally of the trump admin.........more American’s dead than WW1, desert storm, and the Afghanistan war combined. trump doesn’t care about American lives or American soldiers. The POS only cares about himself. Pfft trump and his supporters.

And you really think Putin’s bounty money had nothing to do with Afghans killing American’s? Seriously?

Pffft trump and Putin supporters.

If there is even a little truth to this, then Trump once again has handled it like a dunce.

Anything he perceives as negative towards him is instantly a Democratic Hoax.

Considering all the other dem hoaxes, you're actually surprised by that?

'dem hoaxes' ~ smh

Oh yes, all those hoaxes... Ever notice how anything that makes your orange deity look bad is a hoax or fake news? I mean once or twice maybe, but every damn time? GMAB. You can't seriously be this slow on the uptake, I've read your posts and you are not illiterate or stupid that I can see, so why would you continually buy into this garbage excuse? Hoax my ass.

Yeah, 130,000 dead people and counting is hard to dispute.

Then why do you think we put a bounty on terrorists? Only kill them because of bounties? Can you explain what that has to do with Russians placing bounties on American troops?

Only in Trumplandia.

jc

Spies and commandos warned months ago of Russian bounties on U.S. troops

https://www.startribune.com/spies-and-co...oops/571533422/

So the threat was credible enough to warn those in harms way but now it's "a hoax"? Just like Covid 19 was a hoax.

And people keep believing his BS.

Mostly because I'm not illiterate or stupid. The entire Russia hoax from beginning to end was a hoax and partisan coup attempt. 3 years of hearing about "mountains of evidence", "we got him now" proclamations, and all the secret testimony was, "I have no knowledge of that". Hoax.

I read the left and right sides, use different sources, and make up my own mind.

Well it's obvious you can read or write however the rest of that may be up for debate and might even deserve its own thread.



Yet many of Trump's cronies and even some Russians were convicted and witnesses were blocked from testifying. Your definition of hoax seems quite puzzling.



Yet it seems to always heavily slant in one direction no matter the evidence to the contrary.

You mean the ones the idiot in the white house and his minions call Dem Hoaxs?

You mean like the Corona Virus? That Dem Hoax?

No, he means the hoax where all those people were convicted and Trump kept stopping witnesses with first hand knowledge from testifying. Then they yell, "Yeah, but you didn't have first hand witnesses!"

That hoax.

j/c...

Oh,, That hoax...almost forgot about that one.

Seeing that were are at 2.7 million confirmed cases, and 130,000 deaths, that's a 4.81% mortality rate. Granted there have been more cases than confirmed cases, but you don't ignore just because you personally haven't had it yet. At the current rate, if everyone in the US were to get it, you'd have 15.5 million dead.

Your head is just exploding. You're so dramatic, I love it.

Lol .You would know....this is all trump supporters have now. They....Can’t defend his loyalty to Putin. Can’t defend his actions are costing American lives here and abroad. Can’t defend his racism. Can’t defend his misogyny. Can’t defend his cowardice. This is all they have. Pffft trump supporters.

Trump would rather believe the word of an ex-kgb agent than stand with our soldiers who are being killed for the bounty money being offered by Putin.

The American people are going to demand answers. Yesterday, as the Trump's briefing ended a reporter asked Trump why he believes Putin's denial rather than the word of our own intell?

...Trump rushed out of the room rather than answering the question.

The questions will not go away just because Trump ignores them!

Yeah, those awful math lies.

Even his supporters trust Putin more than our own people.

I will never forget how these trash ass conservatives kept praising Putin and slamming Obama when he was president.

Most of these trump supporters today would never stand side by side with me in the combat zone.

I can’t trust most of them to do the right thing. Especially on this board.

So you are saying that a report that says that Russia has put a bounty on uS Troops wouldn't surface at the top of any day of briefings?

That is BS Total BS..

There is no proof that he wasn't briefed. All you have is the pablum that Trump puts out.

According to even the reports 40 cent is trying to use, the only thing they actually claim is that, "he wasn't briefed verbally".

A president is actually supposed to read his daily briefings but unless someone tells it to Trump, "he doesn't know it."

Because as we all know, for Trump, reading is hard.

And as we all know, if they don't lie for Trump, "You're Fired!"

I’m still waiting on a trump supporter to explain why the president doesn’t read his intelligence reports.

That is part of his job, after all.

They obviously think he shouldn't have to do his job.

Yet when their child doesn't complete all of his homework they go nuts.

He hates to read. Anything.

And he really, really sux at it. Because practice promotes proficiency.
Don't you love those speeches he makes when his handlers force him to stay on script? Flat. Lifeless. Stodgy. Wooden.


If you wanna keep Assterisk45* from stealing your wife's jewels, hide them inside a book. They'll be safe forever.

Make sure it's a book without cover art, though.

Attention Disorder Deficit permanently.

Seems most of his job is ‘sir jokes a lot’

Trump doesn't do read and intelegence, he does watch and tweet

jc...


Duckworth on Russia bounties: How dare Trump still call himself our commander in chief?

Trump should be outraged and we should be outraged that he’s not. Whether he's incompetent or putting Russia first, he's a national security threat.

Tammy Duckworth Opinion contributor
Published 6:00 a.m. CT July 7,2020
link


While President Donald Trump has spent the past couple of weeks golfing, campaigning and making sure the buck stopped anywhere but with him, American service members in hot spots around the world likely were wondering whether there might be a bounty hanging over their heads — and whether the president of the United States would even care enough to respond if that were the case.

In a report confirmed by other major news organizations, The New York Times wrote on June 26 that Russia paid Taliban-linked militants to murder U.S. troops, a bounty scheme that U.S. intelligence suggests has led to the deaths of several Americans. Yet while Trump reportedly was told of the plot in writing in February, his administration still hasn’t taken any apparent steps to push back against Russia’s blatant and provocative act of aggression.

And while the administration’s excuses, obfuscations and explanations keep changing, there is now reporting that indicates earlier and earlier briefings, going back to last year, informing the president and the White House of these threats. That leaves us with just a couple options.

Incompetence or putting Russia first?
First, Trump didn’t read any of his written briefings and his intelligence officers didn’t bring it up to him in person, because they either fear what he would do with the information or consider him so counterproductive to the running of the country that they thought it necessary to hide critical information about our national security. Well, ignorance here is not exculpatory. “I didn't know that our adversary was helping kill American troops because no one told me” isn’t an excuse for the commander in chief of the greatest military on earth. It’s a confession of incompetence.


Second, he knew, and this “America First” president simply decided to place Russian interests ahead of American lives. He kept right on trying to score Russia an invitation back into the Group of Seven leading industrial nations, to make it the Group of Eight, even as he received information that Russia was conspiring with terrorists to kill Americans in exchange for cash — a dereliction of duty or worse. Then, when the story finally broke, he decided to lie about what he had known all along, focused more on protecting his own personal reputation than protecting the troops sacrificing for our country overseas.

Neither option absolves him. Both reinforce the grave threat Trump poses to our nation’s security.

Even if one swallows the pill that Trump never knew, it still wouldn’t explain his response now that he has been told. Not once since the story broke has the president expressed his sorrow for those who lost a loved one or expressed awe at the bravery of the service members who were in harm’s way because they loved their country so much, they were willing to go to a war zone for her.

He has had time to call former Vice President Joe Biden names and tweet then delete a video of a Trump supporter shouting "white power" at protesters, but not once has he found the time to express horror that Americans are dead or condemn the adversary that helped kill them. Perhaps most notably, not once in the past six days has he given even the slightest indication that his administration will now finally take action. He's still not telling us how or whether he’s planning to better protect our troops going forward.

Trump should be outraged — and we, the American people, should be outraged that he’s not.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark:President Trump's weak support of troops amid Russian bounty to Taliban shows lack of leadership

Of course, Trump not responding here is a response in its own way, and one that further endangers our national security. Just as he did when he pandered to another tyrant and announced he’d sweep our troops out of Syria last fall, and just as he did when he wanted to look tough by ordering the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani last winter, he put Americans in war zones in even greater danger than they were already in or needed to be in.

Disgraceful subservience to Putin
By refusing to call out this wrong then decrying the reports as fake news — by being incompetent in matters ranging from foreign policy to common decency — Trump has made it more likely that other hostile powers will work with other terrorist networks to exchange other American lives for stacks of cash. He has made it more likely that more spouses will be widowed, and more moms and dads turned into Gold Star parents.

Yet somehow as shocking as this news is, it’s not entirely surprising. Rather, it’s consistent with the disgraceful, inexplicable subservience he has shown to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the opening days of his presidency if not before, from taking Putin’s word over our own intelligence officers when it came to interference in the 2016 election to spilling secrets to Russian officials in the Oval Office. So much for “America First.”

Understanding sacrifice:Tammy Duckworth is a war hero and the best vice president for Joe Biden in 2020

I first ran for Congress so that when the drums of war started beating, I’d be in a position to ensure that our elected officials fully considered the true costs of war: not just in dollars and cents, but also in human lives. I never imagined I’d have to use my position to point out that the American president should care when another nation puts a bounty on the heads of our troops.

Trump has never understood what words like “sacrifice” or “courage” mean. How dare he let his own personal cowardice — his inability, or worse, his disinterest in standing up to Putin — lead to a reality where those Americans actually brave enough to serve are put at greater risk?

How dare he let his own personal insecurities endanger our national security?

In the face of all he has done and all he refuses to do, how dare he still call himself our commander in chief?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is an Iraq veteran and helicopter pilot who spent 23 years in the military and retired as a lieutenant colonel. Follow her on Twitter: @SenDuckworth

Trump is off to other dirty dead’s. While this is forgotten like our dead soldiers.

Pffft trump.

Trump is a funny guy.. Funny and dumber than a rock. In fact, his entire administration is out of their minds.

First they deny this story, now they are opening an investigation to find out who leaked the information.

Typical Mob Boss.. Don't worry about what I do and say, let's get the person that told the press,, the leaker.

j/c...



Inside the White House, a Gun Industry Lobbyist Delivers for His Former Patrons

The Trump administration lifted a ban on sales of silencers to private overseas buyers that was intended to protect U.S. troops from ambushes. The change was championed by a lawyer for the president who had worked for a firearms trade group.

By Michael LaForgia and Kenneth P. Vogel
July 13, 2020
Updated 7:59 p.m. ET

Michael B. Williams spent nearly two years helping to run a trade group focused on expanding sales of firearm silencers by American manufacturers.

But try as he might, he could not achieve one of the industry’s main goals: overturning a ban on sales to private foreign buyers enacted by the State Department to protect American troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Then Mr. Williams joined the Trump administration.

As a White House lawyer, he pushed to overturn the prohibition, raising the issue with influential administration officials and creating pressure within the State Department, according to current and former government officials.

On Friday, the State Department lifted the ban, and a longtime industry goal was realized. The change paved the way for as much as $250 million a year in possible new overseas sales for companies that Mr. Williams had championed as general counsel of the American Suppressor Association.

His role in pushing to lift the ban, which has not been previously reported, follows a well-established pattern in the Trump administration, with the president handing over policymaking to allies of special interest groups with a stake in those policies. And in this case, Mr. Williams’s victory comes for a key constituency as President Trump seeks re-election.

Mr. Trump’s cabinet includes a former coal lobbyist as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a former lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon Technologies as defense secretary, a lobbyist for the auto industry at the helm of the Energy Department and a former oil and gas lobbyist as interior secretary. Those industries have been sources of funds for Mr. Trump’s campaign and committees supporting it.

Mr. Williams’s work, though lower-profile, has nevertheless been a boon to another crucial political constituency: the gun lobby, which plays a leading role in Republican get-out-the-vote efforts and views eliminating silencer restrictions as an emerging issue. It’s a subject that has been embraced by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — an ally of Mr. Williams’s former trade group — as well as by other powerful gun industry groups.

“This is another win for the firearm and suppressor manufacturers by the Trump administration,” said Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, in a statement after the ban was lifted Friday.

In an interview, Mr. Keane praised Mr. Williams, saying “he understands the product, obviously, having worked at the American Suppressor Association.” That association said it was “thrilled” with the ban’s end; the group also dismissed safety concerns, noting that the sales would be regulated by the State Department and that foreign-made silencers were already available for purchase in other countries.

But some in military, diplomatic and arms control circles defended the ban and expressed alarm about its lifting, which was announced Friday afternoon in a little-noticed posting on a State Department website. Although the department’s rules had long permitted selling silencers to foreign governments, they did not allow sales to private companies or individuals, whose use of the devices is more difficult to monitor.

Silencers, or sound suppressors, attach to a firearm’s muzzle and reduce the noise made by gunfire by trapping gas released when a bullet is fired. Sales of suppressors in the United States, which are regulated by federal authorities, have climbed in recent years.

Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., who was assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs when the ban was enacted in 2002, said the policy was intended to prevent American equipment from being used against American service members, especially during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

“Terrorist groups were using garage door openers to blow up U.S. troops; you kind of think twice about what you are exporting,” said Mr. Bloomfield, who added that such dangers still exist today. “Who are you selling these silencers to?” he said. “I sure hope that none of these are aimed at U.S. or allied forces.”

A State Department spokeswoman said the policy change was made to benefit American manufacturers. “U.S. companies should have the same opportunity to compete in the international marketplace as other manufacturers around the world,” the spokeswoman said. She also said that silencers were more readily available in foreign countries now than when the ban was imposed.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Williams declined to comment.

An examination of Mr. Williams’s rise from trade group advocate to West Wing lawyer reveals that White House tumult and turnover created opportunities for him.

After joining Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016, Mr. Williams, at age 30, became an assistant deputy general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget, then led by Mick Mulvaney.

In the spring of 2019, not long after Mr. Mulvaney was elevated to acting White House chief of staff, Mr. Williams joined him as counselor and a deputy assistant to the president. It was from that perch that Mr. Williams began to press the gun issues in earnest, according to the current and former officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

While in the White House, Mr. Williams maintained close ties to the suppressor association, which is funded by silencer manufacturers, distributors, retailers and customers. His brother, Knox Williams, started the organization and serves as its president and executive director, and the two have remained in regular contact. “We speak almost every day,” Knox Williams said in an interview.

Mr. Williams, his brother said, did not run afoul of Trump administration ethics rules that forbid government officials from working on matters affecting their former employers within two years of leaving. But in 2019, he set to work on gun issues without those constraints.

He was involved in a successful push to shift responsibility for foreign sales of semiautomatic weapons, including powerful .50-caliber sniper rifles, to the Commerce Department from the State Department — an effort that had been underway since the Obama administration and that had been blocked by Democratic members of Congress over concerns that it would strip away oversight.

Once that was accomplished, Mr. Williams turned to the silencer sales ban, even though in internal discussions Pentagon officials had warned against lifting it. Silencers have become standard-issue among military special operations forces because they offer an advantage in combat, allowing American troops to shoot at an enemy but making it harder for the enemy to determine where the gunfire is coming from. The officials feared that a glut of high-quality silencers overseas might put American forces at a similar disadvantage.Mr. Williams pressed the case anyway.

Knox Williams called the State Department decision a “big victory” for his group but said the association had had no inside advantage in seeking it — though he acknowledged that his brother had played a role. “We work the issues that we work just the same as any other organization does,” he said.

Government watchdog groups, however, said the case raised concerns about special interests gaining remarkable access in the Trump White House.

“When Michael Williams exits through the revolving door to return to the gun industry, I’m sure he will be greeted with open arms,” said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, a government ethics advocacy group that has filed records requests for Mr. Williams’s communications with the gun lobby from the White House budget office.

Records obtained by Mr. Evers’s group show that in early 2018, about a year after his arrival at the White House, Mr. Williams was invited by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to three meetings that another invitee described as being about countering gun control measures after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Mr. Keane, the shooting sports foundation’s general counsel, said Mr. Williams did not attend the meetings and had been invited in error. Nevertheless, he said his group communicated with Mr. Williams about the State Department’s silencer policy, and other Second Amendment-related issues. He said Mr. Williams took on what Mr. Keane called the “hook and bullet” portfolio — fishing and hunting issues — at the White House.

A Georgia native and Eagle Scout, Mr. Williams worked as a law clerk for the National Rifle Association before graduating from George Washington University Law School in 2014. Soon after, he went to work at the American Suppressor Association, which his brother had co-founded three years earlier. Mr. Williams managed the group’s budget, but he also helped draft legislation and lobby lawmakers, his brother said. One of his main issues was the fight to open up sales of silencers to private foreign buyers.

Intent on understanding the reasons for the sales ban, Mr. Williams filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents from the State Department and then battled the agency over them for more than a year. His association also sought to attack the ban from Capitol Hill, helping to draft and push a bill introduced by Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, in 2016 that would have overturned the sales prohibition, according to Knox Williams. The bill never got out of committee.

Neither Mr. Williams nor his brother was required to register as a lobbyist at the federal level, his brother said, because they did not spend 20 percent or more of their time lobbying. “We made sure that we were not hitting those thresholds to require us individually to register,” Knox Williams said.

The Williams brothers also tried to influence silencer policies in various states, including in New Hampshire, where both registered as lobbyists in 2015.

After Mr. Trump accepted the Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, their cause got a boost from a prominent figure, Donald Trump Jr.

The candidate’s son, an avid hunter, recorded a video in September 2016 with Joshua G. Waldron, a founding board member of the suppressor association, expressing support for making silencers easier to buy in the United States.

Mr. Waldron, who founded a company called SilencerCo, tells Mr. Trump in the video “there is no better person than your father to protect our Second Amendment,” and says he wants to “try to get the people that love firearms in our community and our industry” to back the Trump campaign.

The same month, Mr. Wiliams left the suppressor association to become director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump’s campaign in North Carolina. He worked as associate counsel on Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee before joining the Office of Management and Budget in January 2017.

He returned to the budget office last month and was detailed to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, operator of the Voice of America broadcasting network and other federally funded media outlets, as Mr. Trump shook up the agency’s leadership, raising questions about its editorial independence.

On Monday Mr. Williams started as principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A department spokesman did not answer a question about Mr. Williams’s housing policy experience, but called him “a first-rate attorney with immense experience in this administration and in the public policy sphere.”

Michael LaForgia is an investigative reporter who previously worked for The Tampa Bay Times and The Palm Beach Post. While in Florida, he twice won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting

Ken Vogel covers the confluence of money, politics and influence from Washington. He is also the author of “Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp — on the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/trump-gun-silencer-exports.html

j/c

That's just another example of the Trump Crime Syndicate.

jc...



Fort Campbell, Ky., first lieutenant dies in noncombat incident in Afghanistan

By STEVE BEYNON | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: July 13, 2020
link

WASHINGTON — An Army officer from Fort Campbell, Ky., died Sunday in a noncombat-related incident in Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.

1st Lt. Joseph Trent Allbaugh, 24, from Folsom, Calif., was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 108th ADA Brigade. The fatal incident is under investigation.

“The loss of 1st Lt. Joseph Allbaugh is devastating for everyone. On behalf of the 108th ADA Brigade, I want to extend our deepest condolences. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and fellow soldiers. We are with them during this incredibly painful time.” Col. Charles Matallana, the 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade commander, said in a statement.

Allbaugh attended Vanguard University of Southern California and graduated in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He was commissioned through the ROTC as an Army air defense artillery officer and married his wife, Ashley Allbaugh.

Allbaugh’s awards include the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.

More than 2,400 American troops have died in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion launched in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

beynon.steven@stripes.com
Twitter: @StevenBeynon



My condolences to the wife and family of 1st Lt. Joseph Trent Allbaugh.

It seems that it has become too easy to forget that we have soldiers serving in harms way with some making the ultimate sacrifice.

The unresolved Russian Bounty story might have refocused Americans interest in what is happening to our soldiers who remain in harms way, at War in Afghanistan.

In this case, Lt Allbaugh is said to have died due to a non-combat incident. I hope his family will get crosier as soon as possible.

Trump says he did not ask Vladimir Putin about bounties on US troops

David Jackson
USA TODAY
10:04am July 29, 2020
link


WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump says he did not talk to Russia counterpart Vladimir Putin about reports the Russians paid bounties to Taliban rebels for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“I have never discussed it with him," Trump said in a soon-to-be-aired interview with "Axios on HBO," the Axios news website reported Wednesday.

Asked about the interview, Trump told reporters at the White House he would be "very angry" if evidence emerges that the Russians paid bounties for the deaths of U.S. soldiers. "I would respond appropriately," Trump said as he left on a trip to Texas for campaign fundraising and a visit to an oil rig.

While some have said Trump is afraid to confront Putin over the allegations because he is so friendly with the Russian leader, Trump said his intelligence agencies have not been definitive over claims the Russians offered bounties for the deaths of American troops.

Trump and Putin spoke just last Thursday, but Trump told Axios "that was a phone call to discuss other things" rather than bounties, "and frankly that’s an issue that many people said was fake news.”




More:Trump denies knowing about intelligence report that Russia put bounty on U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan

More:Reports say Russia offered bounty on US troops in Afghanistan. Here's what we know

Trump's relationship with Putin is a frequent issue as the president pursues re-election .

Democratic opponent Joe Biden and others say Trump is too chummy with the Russian autocrat, and has refused to confront him on matters ranging from Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to the allegations over bounties.




Citing reports that Russian bounties were mentioned in the Presidential Daily Brief as early as February, Biden said this month that "the idea that somehow he didn't know or isn't being briefed – it is a dereliction of duty if that's the case. And if he was briefed and nothing was done about this, that's a dereliction of duty."

After the Axios interview, Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said Trump continues to ignore the issue "months after the U.S. intelligence community sounded the alarm" about Russian bounties. "Our president continues to turn his back on those who put their lives on the line for our country, and on his own duty," Bates said.




The New York Times reported in early July that intelligence officials believe that "a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan – including targeting American troops – amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there."

Russia denied the allegations.

Congressional committees are looking into the claims about Russia bounties, but have not provided much evidence.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee this month that the government lacks proof of Russian bounties, but is still investigating.

"We’re not done,” Milley said. “We’re going to run this thing to ground.”

A group of Senate Democrats sent Trump a letter demanding information about the bounty claims, telling the president: "There can be no higher national security priority than the protection of our Armed Forces abroad, and the people’s representatives in Congress need to know what is going on here." 

Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council during the Barack Obama administration, said there is plenty of credible evidence behind the bounty allegation. Price said the president fakes "concern for those who put their country first each and every day," while he "prioritizes his own personal and political interests above all else."

Trump administration officials said the intelligence community believes Russia has been providing assistance to Taliban rebels in Afghanistan, but there is no proof they have paid bounties for attacks on soldiers.

Trump has echoed that position in public statements, though he has also professed ignorance of Russian activity in Afghanistan.

Gen. John Nicholson, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said in 2018 that "we know" Russia is providing money and arms to the Taliban.

Asked about those claims, Trump told "Axios on HBO" he was unaware of Nicholson's comments and that evidence of Russian assistance to the Taliban "never reached my desk."




The "Axios on HBO" interview is scheduled to air Monday at 11 p.m. EST.