The New York Times and the Washington reported that a Russian military intelligence unit offered Afghan militants a bounty to kill Coalition forces in Afghanistan. The reports say that Trump and his National Security Council were briefed about this matter last March but took no action. If this is true, it is treasonous. Every veteran, every citizen should be outraged that a president would willfully ignore the targeted killings of American and allied troops.
Trump officials say the report is “fake news.”
The New York Times reported:
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 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.
If the reports are accurate, Trump’s inaction is iminrxplicable or treasonous. He has some strange fascination with Putin, something that makes obsequious towards Putin. Does he owe billions to Russian oligarchs?
With the Trump administration strongly denying the reports, the Times and Post must back up the story with more details. This is not a one-day story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Of course, tRump ignored this. He thinks he can just make stuff up and get away with it.
Putin pays tRump. Putin is trump’s $$$$$$ bag.
There needs to a HUGE investigation and people need to go to jail forever.
Btw …
Every time I think of Epstein and Weinstein, I think of tRump and how he’s part of their WEB of SICKNESS and DISGUST. Bet there are audios and videos of what went on at their parties of SICKNESS and DEPRAVITIES.
“American intelligence officials have concluded….”
Which American intelligence officials? Anyone willing to put their name on it? If not, why not? And why does the media allow this? What justification is there for allowing top intelligence officials to put out anonymous propaganda? We’ve had so many “bombshells” from “American intelligence officials” that have turned out to be nothingburgers or even outright fake. “Paul Manafort secretly visited Julian Assange!!!!” Yeah, in the most tightly surveilled, heavily photographed place on the planet, and yet they couldn’t produce a single photo, video or other scrap of evidence that this actually happened. But the “intelligence officials” who delivered this “bombshell” to the media will never be held accountable because we don’t know who they are.
I won’t go so far as to say this is “fake news”, but we need to take this story with a whole beach-full of sand until and unless we have actual evidence from people willing to go on the record.
It took the White House 24 hours to respond to the story.
See latest Lincoln Project (Never Trumpers) video:
That video presents not a single verifiable fact. Just propaganda told in an ominous tone designed to scare people. If everyone “knows” this story is true, it shouldn’t be hard to find evidence, right?
Dienne, it’s not my job to prove or verify a story in the New York Times and Washington Post. They have fact-checkers. If they are wrong, they will admit it. If Trump is wrong, he will lie. As he always does.
Doubtless there is a job for you in the Whiter House media office, Dienne. These Trump defenses are so clever. Make the (im)plausible denial. Wash and repeat.
White-wash with hog-wash and repeat. It’s always the same song and dance from the munchkins around the guy in the orange clown makeup.
It will be revealed on day what Putin has on the Idiot. It might be after our lifetimes, but history will unveil it at some point. What if it really is just the pee tape? How many lives will the hiding of that shame cost, how many will be destroyed, and how many will have made generational wealth off these lies? The naysaying blowhards who dismiss every revelation bring to mind an anecdote from my soccer coaching days. A referee who was fed up with yelling parents who were completely ignorant of game came up to me and said, “We should just put three lounge chairs on sideline at midfield and have three parents call the game from there since they always seem to know better.
Anne Applebaum, who knows a thing or two about totalitarians and authoritarians has a good take that fits with this post:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/
one day
Well, it’s not just the pee tape, clearly. Trump the “businessman” was bankrupt and facing unpayable loans. Then he went to Moscow, and the money laundering started and the loans from a bank with enormous deposits from Russian kleptocrats.
How well I remember the right-wing pundits on the right going on and on about how we had to fight in Vietnam, how an arms-for-hostages deal couldn’t have been made for Reagan and with Reagan’s knowledge, how we had to go into Iraq because of the WMD. And then, inevitably, the same people denied they ever said such things, claimed that this stuff was obvious. “I knew this all along.”
Everybody knows. But the rapacious Repugnicans find the idiot as useful as Putin, who put him in place, does. With the idiot in charge, they can pillage to their walnut hearts’ content.
cx: remember the pundits on the right
ofc
Here’s the thing. They did know it all along. Moscow Mitch knows as well as you and I do that Trump belongs to Putin.
Moscow’s Asset Governing America (MAGA)
Vlad’s Agent Orange
Oddly, Salman Rushdie’s fabulous novel Shame, which is a parable about 20th Century Pakistan, provides two quotes which seem strangely apt to the Idiot of America in the 21st century:
“Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn; meteorological conditions at both these poles are of the most extreme, ferocious type. Shamelessness, shame: the roots of violence.”
And does this not sum up our COVID reality?:
“It is the will to ignorance, the iron folly with which we excise from consciousness whatever consciousness cannot bear.”
wow. spot on
I live in one of the largest military communities in the country. I hope this treacherous story hurts the right wing with the military here. Matt Gaetz is our representative. A military man born in New York is running against Gaetz for the Democratic party. Phil Ehr rightly points out that the Gaetz is always available for a photo op with the military. When it comes to improving benefits for the military, Gaetz makes a huge No vote. Lots of Republicans find Gaetz an embarrassment, but whether they will vote for a military Democrat remains unlikely. I do not know what Ehr stands for. I only know he cannot be as awful as Gaetz.https://floridapolitics.com/archives/319988-digital-ad-pits-phil-ehr-as-war-hero-and-patriot-against-matt-gaetz-as-trump-fanboy
Hmmm…..
“Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in his own statement late Saturday that he had “confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday.”
He added: “The White House statement addressing this issue earlier today, which denied such a briefing occurred, was accurate. The New York Times reporting, and all other subsequent news reports about such an alleged briefing are inaccurate.””
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/politics/russia-us-troops-afghanistan/index.html
So who’s lying?
Incidentally, Diane, as for your claim that the NYT will correct the story if they’re wrong, that does not entirely fit with their past history. They never have retracted the story about Manafort secretly visiting Assange. And even when they do correct stories, they do so weeks later buried deep in the paper, not blared across the headline like they did for the original story, so most people never know the story was corrected or retracted.
Also, incidentally, can you give me an honest journalistic reason why “American intelligence officials” should be granted anonymity? The only reason any source should be granted anonymity is if there is reasonable fear of reprisals. What reprisal would an intelligence official face for releasing this information?
Johnny Ratcliffe is unqualified to be Director of National Intelligence. He was a rabid rightwing Congressman from Texas whose name was put forward previously by Trump and rejected even by Republicans because he has zero relevant experience. Why do you credit anyone who is a rabid Trumper?
Oh well, then. Ratcliffe said it. He’s so honest and nonpartisan. ROFLMAO!
I’m glad someone can laugh about this constant shite. You’re a much better man than me. That final paragraph is just sad, it’s so uninformed.
uninformed and unthinking? or intentionally (if lamely) misdirecting, in accordance with the DJT playbook?
Letter sent to member of Congress and two senators by a friend of a friend who allowed me to share:
I am the father and father-in-law to two active-duty members of the US Military, both of whom have been in the Middle East in recent years.
Imagine the emotion of my family — siblings, spouses, children, grandchildren, my wife — as we learn that Russia has placed a bounty on the killing of U.S Military, the president is briefed on this in March, and the president’s only action since then has been to extend invitations of friendship to Vladimir Putin.
Imagine. Can you? Our son and son-in-law, with Russian targets on their uniforms, while the president aids and comforts the Russian dictator?
Treason is narrowly defined to prevent its abuse by those who would attempt to restrain political opponents. Specifically, it is aiding and comforting the enemy.
This president is doing both: Accusing his perceived political opponents of treason (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Barack Obama, Adam Schiff, Black Lives Matter, news media), meanwhile aiding and giving comfort to an enemy actively attacking our country.
The narrow definition appears to have been breached.
This is an urgent matter that cannot wait for an election.
Trump no more didn’t get briefed about this than he was joking about the disinfectant. Trump does the egregious thing. Then “a White House source” or Kayleigh Mc-a-Ninny, Miss Communications or Trump himself or Mikey Dence lies about it. It doesn’t just strain credulity to believe that he didn’t know this when he invited Russia to rejoin the G7, it breaks it utterly, it leaves it in shards, as the Trump presidency has left our country, our environment, our alliances, decency in public discourse, decorum, so much else.
Of course he knew.
This is what treason looks like, folks.
Trump has a poor memory and he lies. Dementia?
…………………………………….
PRESIDENT: ‘NO ONE TOLD ME’ ABOUT RUSSIAN BOUNTY TO KILL U.S. SOLDIERS
President Donald Trump on Sunday denied that U.S. intelligence officials had briefed him about an alleged plot by Russian operatives to pay Taliban-linked militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops. “Nobody briefed me or told me, [Vice President] Pence, or Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians,” Trump tweeted. The president accused The New York Times of using a fake “anonymous source” to report the alleged briefing. In fact, the Times report cited multiple officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. [HuffPost]