Tag: Vladimir Putin

New Administration Memo Seeks to Foster Doubts About Suspected Russian Bounties

New York Times logoCriticized for its inaction, the Trump administration commissioned a new look at a months-old intelligence assessment. It emphasizes gaps.

A memo produced in recent days by the office of the nation’s top intelligence official acknowledged that the C.I.A. and top counterterrorism officials have assessed that Russia appears to have offered bounties to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan, but emphasized uncertainties and gaps in evidence, according to three officials.

The memo is said to contain no new information, and both its timing and its stressing of doubts suggested that it was intended to bolster the Trump administration’s attempts to justify its inaction on the months-old assessment, the officials said. Some former national security officials said the account of the memo indicated that politics may have influenced its production.

The National Intelligence Council, which reports to the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, produced the two-and-a-half page document, a so-called sense of the community memorandum. Dated July 1, it appears to have been commissioned after The New York Times reported on June 26 that intelligence officials had assessed months ago that Russia had offered bounties, but the White House had yet to authorize a response. Continue reading.

Russian bounties were the subject of police raids six months ago — as more details continue to emerge

AlterNet logoIt hasn’t even been a week since the story of Russia offering bounties for the death of American soldiers in Afghanistan first broke. That initial story suggested that the information had been known since spring, but was unclear about when Donald Trump had been informed or whether Russia had actually followed through in its proxy war against the United States. However, since then the story has grown daily. It’s now clear that the program has been in place for over a year, and that Trump was personally briefed on the threat by John Bolton in March of 2019. If that wasn’t enough, the program was also featured in subsequent daily briefs, including on February 27 when Trump had a tough schedule that included meeting with the actors behind the play FBI Lovebirds.

As more information has developed, the one fairly consistent claim from the White House has been that the information was “unconfirmed” and didn’t rise to the level of taking action. However, it’s obvious that this is untrue. The information was highly regarded enough to form the basis of changes to tactics on the ground in Afghanistan, and it has proven laughably easy to confirm the transfer of money between Russia and Taliban militants. Now more information is available, showing that Russia made these payments on multiple occasions and that a series of raids and arrests were made in chasing down the middlemen of the Russia scheme. And this wasn’t something that happened in the last week—it happened over six months ago. Continue reading.

Trump decries Russian bounty reports as ‘fake news’ as his national security adviser says response options were prepared

Washington Post logoPresident Trump continued to insist Wednesday that reports of Russia’s offering bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan were “fake news,” as his national security adviser disclosed that options had been drawn up to present to Trump on how to respond if the allegations were corroborated.

National security adviser Robert C. O’Brien reiterated during a television interview Wednesday that national security officials decided not to present Trump with unverified intelligence regarding Russia’s purported plans but indicated that they took the situation seriously enough to prepare options for the president.

“If this eventually becomes something that’s proven, or something that we believe, we need to have options for the president to deal with the Russians,” O’Brien said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “I can tell you this: If this information turned out to be true, and now we may never know, but if it turned out to be true, we had options ready to go, and the president was ready to take strong action, as he always is.” Continue reading.

Ex-intel officials push back against ‘absurd’ claim that Trump wasn’t briefed on Russian bounty info

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump and his administration have found themselves facing yet another Russia-related scandal — this time, over reports that the Russian government offered a bounty to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan if they would kill U.S. troops. White House officials have denied that Trump was briefed on the matter because the intelligence was “not verified,” but according to an article for CNN’s website, former intel officials are having a hard time believing that Trump was never briefed on the bounty.

CNN reporters Zachary Cohen, Jamie Gangel, Barbara Starr, Kevin Liptak and Kylie Atwood explain: “Numerous former senior intelligence officials are pushing back on the White House denials, saying it was ‘absurd,’ ‘ridiculous’ and ‘inconceivable’ that the president would not have been briefed on such critical intelligence that potentially put U.S. soldiers in harm’s way.”

On June 27, National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe claimed, in an official statement, that “neither the president nor the vice president were ever briefed” on the Russia/Taliban intelligence. And White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Trump “was not personally briefed” because there was too much “dissent” within the intelligence community. Continue reading.

Here’s what Trump was focused on the day his briefing reportedly included the Russian bounty plot

AlterNet logoMore information is coming out on the timeline of when President Donald Trump was reportedly briefed on a Russian plot to offer bounties for the killing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“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,” The New York Times reported Monday evening, citing “two 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,” the newspaper reported. “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.” Continue reading.

Busted: Trump engaged in 3-week ‘flurry of communication’ with Putin this year — and the White House hid some of the calls

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump engaged in an unprecedented – and previously unknown – “flurry of communication” with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a three-week period earlier this year, according to a sister-network of Voice of America.

“On March 30, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by telephone, the first of five calls between the two over a period of three weeks, a flurry of communication unprecedented during Trump’s 3 1/2 years in office,” reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL).

Only one of those five calls, according to research from NCRM, was shared with the press. None were posted to the White House website, a serious deviation from prior practice. Continue reading.

Pelosi on Trump: ‘With him, all roads lead to Putin’

Members of Congress seek answers on reports about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday blasted the president for being beholden to the Russian government, following a startling New York Times report that Russia secretly offered bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Just as I have said to the president: With him, all roads lead to Putin,” Pelosi said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally, or financially.”

The California Democrat, who is part of the so-called Gang of Eight that gets intelligence briefings, said she was not aware of the situation and has asked for a report to Congress. Continue reading.

‘He would have been briefed instantaneously’: WH veteran slams Trump’s comical BountyGate denials‘He would have been briefed instantaneously’: WH veteran slams Trump’s comical BountyGate denials

AlterNet logoDavid Gergen, who you probably know as an analyst for CNN, also served as an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. So he knows how a (functional, anyway) administration operates.

And he’s calling extreeeeeeme bullshit on the Trump administration’s new claim that Donald Trump and Mike Pence were never briefed about the bounties Russia reportedly placed on our soldiers in Afghanistan:

CNN’s ANA CABRERA: “The White House is now denying the president was briefed on this, but if the New York Times‘ reporting is accurate, this would mean the president was briefed on this in late March. In early May he announced the U.S. had a great friendship with Russia. And later that same month, he reiterated his desire to invite Russia into the G-7. David, you have worked in four White Houses. Why wouldn’t a president have been briefed on intelligence like this?”

Continue reading.

Multiple news organizations confirm Russian cash-for-corpses bounties for murders of American soldiers

AlterNet logoOn the last day of February, the United States signed a preliminary agreement with the Taliban that was intended to bring to an end to two decades of conflict and U. S. military occupation in Afghanistan. However, despite an extended round of chest-thumping by Donald Trump,  it took only two days for that agreement to prove the weakest of weak tea, as violence resumed and the Taliban ordered its fighters right back into the fray. Since then, there has been attempts to negotiate a series of interim agreements that would build toward an actual working agreement, but the negotiations haven’t even seriously begun. Officially, the blame for that failure has been on COVID-19 and the pandemic that’s spread around the globe. But on Friday, The New York Times reported another reason why things might not be settling down: Russia paid bounties for militants to attack American forces.

Now The Washington Post has confirmed that story and provided additional details. That includes how Moscow’s bounties on American troops are intended to “muddy the negotiations on Afghanistan” and keep the United States involved in this long, costly, and distracting effort. Which leaves Russia free to attack Ukraine, romp through the Middle East, and generally have its way around the world—all while Donald Trump defends their actions and makes regular phone calls to Vladimir Putin.

As the earlier story made clear, Trump has known about Russia’s contract killing of American soldiers since at least March. That hasn’t prevented Trump from launching into an argument that Russia deserves to be re-admitted to the G7 and that Putin should be invited to the next meeting of the economic organization. Trump was on the phone with the Russian autocrat earlier this month to renew that invitation over the objections of both Canada and the U. K. Continue reading.

Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says

New York Times logoThe Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment.

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. Continue reading.