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Reports: ‘Russian bounties’ intelligence was in Trump written daily briefing
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11.17am BST
David Ignatius at the Washington Post is one of several op-ed columnists to tackle this story, in an overnight piece asking “Were Trump’s aides too afraid to tell him about the Russian bounties?”. He writes:
A basic truth about Russian President Vladimir Putin, which President Trump evidently doesn’t understand: Putin is in the payback business. He believes the United States destroyed his former country, the Soviet Union. He likes the United States to feel pain, in Afghanistan and everywhere else.
Trump has his own, much rosier take on Putin. And I can’t help wondering whether that explains why, assuming his account is true, the American president was never briefed about intelligence reports early this year that Russia was offering bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
Trump is an obstacle to good policy. Either people don’t tell him the truth, or he doesn’t want to hear it. Whichever way, he’s defaulting on his most basic responsibility as commander in chief.
11.04am BST
Tom McCarthy was reporting for us in New York in the early hours about the new claims surrounding the mystery of whether Donald Trump was briefed about Russia offering bounties for attacks on US troops in Afghanistan.
He explains how multiple US media outlets have claimed that Donald Trump was given a written briefing months ago about the intelligence.
The New York Times quoted two sources as saying details were included in a daily intelligence briefing the president received in late February. CNN said an official with direct knowledge told them it was included in the briefing – a written document – briefing “sometime in the spring”.
Senior White House officials were aware as far back as early 2019 and the intelligence assessment was included in at least one of the president’s written daily briefings, the Associated Press reported, according to multiple officials.
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