Claims of Russian Bounty on U.S. Troops Not a Hoax, House Democrats Say
House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer says that he thinks that reports that Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans is not a hoax.
“The president called this a hoax publicly. Nothing in the briefing that we have just received led me to believe it is a hoax. There may be different judgments as to the level of credibility, but there was no assertion that the information we had was a hoax,” Rep. Hoyer said.
Hoyer and a group of House Democrats met with officals at the White House Tuesday morning. Rep. Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also attended the briefing, but said the “right people” weren’t in the room to brief members of Congress.
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 at the time that 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.
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