‘BRIEF’ DISBELIEF Pols heap scorn on Trump claim he didn’t get memo on Russia bid to kill G.I.s
Democratic leaders dropped hints on Thursday that, in spite of denials from the White House, President Trump all but certainly received a briefing on the alleged Russian plot to have American soldiers killed overseas.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made the subtle allusions after attending a top-secret intelligence briefing about Russia’s suspected efforts to pay Taliban fighters bounties for assassinating U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
First, the top Democrats issued a joint statement after the closed-door briefing lashing
Trump for not reading his president’s daily briefing (PDB), a highly sensitive document compiled by the CIA that presidents are supposed to review every day.
“Any reports of threats on our troops must be pursued relentlessly,” they wrote. “Our armed forces would be better served if President Trump spent more time reading his daily briefing and less time planning military parades and defending relics of the Confederacy.”
The carefully-worded statement did not comment directly on the so-called “Gang of Eight” briefing Pelosi and Schumer had just attended with six other senior lawmakers, as disseminating information from such a classified session is prohibited.
However, shortly after the statement was issued, Pelosi held a press conference at which she again brought up the Russian bounty intelligence in the context of Trump’s biefings.
“It was in his PDB,” Pelosi told reporters matter-of-factly.
Seemingly catching herself, she quickly added: “But, again, having nothing to do with what we saw” during the briefing.
Nonetheless, a source briefed on the matter signaled Trump’s briefings did come up over the course of the “Gang of Eight” session.
“It became clear to many who were briefed that the president tends to glance more than he reads,” the source told the Daily News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The linguistic marksman
ship from Pelosi and Schumer comes amid reports that a PDB from Feb. 27 included intelligence about the Russian bounty plot to kill American service members.
Among the Taliban attacks that are suspected to have been facilitated by Russian cash is the April 2019 car bomb outside Kabul that killed three U.S. Marines, including ex-FDNY Firefighter Christopher Slutman.
The White House notably has not denied that Trump’s PDBs may have included information about the alleged Russian plot.
Rather, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has only said she cannot comment on specifics about briefings due to their classified nature.
McEnany has, however, vehemently denied that Trump was ever briefed in-person about Russia’s Afghanistan activities, saying U.S. intelligence officials opted against bringing him that information because it had not been absolutely “verified.”
Pelosi dismissed McEnany’s claim about verification as a red herring to shield the president from scrutiny.
“The White House put on a con,” Pelosi said. “We would practically be investigating nothing if you had to start off at 100%. So don’t buy into that, and neither does the intelligence community.”
Former intelligence officials have also cast doubt over McEnany’s explanations.
“As someone who worked at both the Bush and Obama White House, I can’t fathom how that intel wouldn’t make it to the president in short order, both because of the implications with the Russians, and with the Taliban, who the president was negotiating with in real-time,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who helped prepare and present briefings during her time as a CIA analyst, wrote in a recent tweet.
“Either the senior staff was truly incompetent, or worse: they purposely withheld the info for fear it would disrupt the president’s relationships.”
The Russian bounty scandal has put renewed focus on Trump’s ties to the Kremlin and at times eyebrow-raising admiration for President Vladimir Putin.
In their post-briefing statement, Pelosi and Schumer noted that news of the scandal has emerged alongside what they described as other troubling Russia developments, including Trump’s push to readmit the nation to the G7.
Pelosi also recalled that, when Congress presented Trump with legislation sanctioning Russia for its interference in U.S. elections, the White House asked that the levies targeting the country’s “intelligence and defense” agencies be scrapped.
“The very sector that is now accused of possible threats on our men and women in uniform,” Pelosi said. “We have to restore those, whatever else happens of this, we must restore those sanctions.”