US President Donald Trump received a written briefing about alleged Russian bounties offered to Afghan militants to kill US troops as early as February, the New York Times said on Monday in a new report undercutting Trump’s assertion that he was not told of the threat.
Trump has come under increasing pressure to explain mounting media reports saying he was informed that Russian military intelligence had offered and paid cash to Taliban-linked militants for US soldiers’ deaths — and did nothing in response.
The Times, citing two unnamed officials, said the claim had been included in a written version of the president’s daily briefing in late February.
Photo: AFP
CNN confirmed the story, but cited an official as saying the document was produced “sometime in the spring.”
Trump has denied being informed of the assessment, while the White House on Monday said the claim had been kept from him because the intelligence underpinning it was unverified.
Trump is known for not regularly reading the daily brief, preferring to rely on conservative media reports on the day’s big issues — but he is reportedly orally briefed by intelligence officials up to three times a week.
Crucially, the officials told the Times the Russia assessment was considered sufficiently serious and credible to include in a May 4 article in the CIA’s classified World Intelligence Review, its flagship intelligence product.
The White House briefed a small group of Republican lawmakers on its position on Monday, but top congressional Democrats have demanded that all members of Congress be briefed by the intelligence community.
An aide to Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the US House of Representatives, said later on Monday that White House officials would brief a number of Democratic lawmakers on the reports at the White House at 8am yesterday.
“The questions that arise are: was the president briefed, and if not, why not, and why was Congress not briefed,” US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe and CIA Director Gina Haspel.
The Times previously reported that US intelligence officers and special forces in Afghanistan began raising the alarm as early as January, and that the National Security Council held an interagency meeting in late March to discuss possible responses — but the White House did not authorize any action.
“I am disgusted by Trump’s incompetence,” tweeted Tammy Duckworth, a former US Army helicopter pilot and combat veteran who is now a Democratic senator from Illinois.
“He either didn’t know that Russia was offering bounties for killing American troops or didn’t care enough to remember a briefing that told him. Neither is acceptable for a Commander in Chief,” she wrote.
Since the Times first broke the story on Friday, several US and British media outlets have reported the US intelligence conclusion that Russia offered cash incentives for dead US troops in Afghanistan.
The mushrooming scandal comes with Trump trying to withdraw troops from the conflict-torn country -— one of the Taliban’s key demands — and end the US’ longest war.
Trump on Sunday denied having been briefed on the matter, as the reporting renewed questions about his reluctance to confront Russia over behavior that, if accurate, would represent a serious national security challenge.
“Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP,” he tweeted.
However, even in Republican ranks, there were expressions of concern at the gravity of the allegations.
“If intelligence reports are verified that Russia or any other country is placing bounties on American troops, then they need to be treated as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Thom Tillis, a Republican on the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, said on Twitter.
Ratcliffe and US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien condemned leaks to the media over the intelligence in statements.
“Because the allegations in recent press articles have not been verified or substantiated by the intelligence community, President Trump had not been briefed on the items,” O’Brien said.
“Nevertheless, the administration, including the National Security Council staff, have been preparing should the situation warrant action,” he said.
Ratcliffe said unauthorized disclosures had jeopardized the effort to “ever find out the full story” behind the allegations.
Meanwhile the Pentagon said in a statement it had “no corroborating evidence” for the allegations.
Additional reporting by Reuters
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS