Trump calls Russian bounty plot ‘fake new,’ disputing own advisors
President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that allegations about a Russian bounty scheme to kill American soldiers are nothing but “fake news,” contradicting his own advisers who said the U.S. considered the matter serious enough to prepare retaliatory options against Moscow.
“The Russia Bounty story is just another made up Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party ... Just another HOAX!” Trump tweeted, for the second day in a row seeking to discredit the explosive claim that Russia offered cash bounties to Taliban militants willing to assassinate U.S. service members in Afghanistan.
Hours before Trump’s tweet, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien offered a starkly different message.
In an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” O’Brien confirmed the U.S. obtained intelligence to suggest Russia had indeed given bounties to Taliban extremists.
And, while there were some internal disagreements about the veracity of the intelligence, O’Brien suggested it was credible enough to prepare next steps.
“I can tell you this: If this information turned out to be true, and now we may never know, but if it turned out to be true, we had options ready to go, and the president was ready to take strong action, as he always is,” O’Brien said.
During a press conference at State Department headquarters, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a similar assessment.
“We took this seriously. We handled it appropriately,” Pompeo said, declining to comment on specifics over confidentiality concerns.
Despite the apparent retaliatory preparations, O’Brien reiterated the White House’s claim that Trump wasn’t briefed on the bounty intelligence until it was leaked to news outlets last week.
“The president was not briefed because at the time of these allegations, they were uncorroborated,” he said. “As a result, the president’s career CIA briefer decided not to brief him because it was unverified intelligence.”
Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who served in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, said it’s “inconceivable” that Trump would have been kept out of the loop while his officials explored plans to retaliate against a foreign adversary.
“Those two things can’t coexist together,” Price told the Daily News. “To me, it suggests there was much more corroboration and credibility than the administration has us believe.”
But White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed Trump’s personal CIA briefer made the decision to not fill him in on the intelligence.
“It was the right decision to make,” McEnany said, again stressing that the intelligence is “unverified.”
Since last week, a flurry of news reports emerged stating that the Trump administration learned of Russia’s alleged bounties as far back as 2019, raising concern that the president looked the other way as the Kremlin sought to have U.S. soldiers killed.