June 28, 2020

"President Trump responded Sunday to a New York Times report about American intelligence learning that Russia offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces including American troops..."

"... insisting that no one had briefed him, Vice President Pence, or White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on this information" — Fox News reports.
"Nobody briefed or told me, @VP Pence, or Chief of Staff @MarkMeadows about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an 'anonymous source' by the Fake News @nytimes," Trump tweeted Sunday morning. "Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us. Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration."

58 comments:

Mark said...

The NYTimes has better intelligence than the Trump White House.

Sad!

We have t minus 2 weeks until we find out that this was a lie.

Gordy said...

Back in the day, we gave Stinger missiles to Afghans so they could shoot down Russian helicopters.

Wince said...

"Six ways from Sunday."

Today is Sunday.

narciso said...

so they were paid in emeralds, there were signal intercepts, what evidence do we actually have here,

n.n said...

An "anonymous source", singular. It must be considered that after 16 trimesters of witch hunts, warlock trials, and "protests", NYT is desperate to sustain and progress the status quo.

Big Mike said...

He’d better be right about that.

Koot Katmandu said...

Russia again really. What is up with the Left Russia, Russia, Russia narrative. Even if what the NYT says is true do they want PDT to start a war with Russia? What about Iran in killing our troops in Iraq? Has PDT been overly friendly with Russia? Would normalizing relations with Russia be so horrible?

What did Russia do to have the left turn on them so hard? They often praised them during the cold war. I am beginning to think the Left hate Russia because Russia did not make communism work? Do they really believe Putin pulled the strings to make Hillary loose?

Lyle Smith said...

They will never stop.

Although, this seems plausible since Trump did kill Russian "mercenaries" in Syria.

Go look up Dan Rather's tweet about this, because it is a thing of corporate media/Cathedral beauty.

Kay said...

.... well, if nobody told them ....

Howard said...

Oh, OK then.

I See Nothing

Mark O said...

Trump's comments confirmed today by the DNI.
Still and all, who believes the NYT about anything?

Yancey Ward said...

Who wants to bet the anonymous source was hired by the Biden Campaign just like Christoper Steele?

narciso said...

Russia is an orthodox nationalist power, in this era, yes they deal with the Iranian sepah and through them, the iraqi militias because they must out of convenience,

rcocean said...

Trump has good new regarding the DoJ arresting four antifa vandals. So, the Press had to divert attention with this nonsense. And why would I believe the NYT? They've shown again, and again, they will lie about Trump using anonymous sources that don't exist.They lied for 3 years about Trump being a "Russian Asset" and "Russian Collusion" and how "Trump was obstructing justice" and "Mueller has Trump dead to rights". All lies. All based on Anonymous sources "Familiar with the situation".

clint said...

These stories aren't meant to convince the moderates, they're meant to maintain the narrative for those who already believe.

Last week, we learned (of a third-hand rumor) that President Trump encouraged the Chinese to build concentration camps for their muslim minorities.

This week we learn (of an anonymous rumor) that President Trump turned a blind eye to Russians targeting our troops.

It's ironic to see this in the same week that has CNN pushing the "Republicans more likely to believe conspiracy theories" line.

Gk1 said...

Why is this even a thing? Of course the russians are screwing with us in the Middle east just like we do to russia at every opportunity. It wasn't all that long ago our side was crowing about the time our elite forces wiped out a bunch of russian mercenaries in Syria.

MartyH said...

Mark-

Didn’t Obama get his intel through the newspapers?

Achilles said...

So the NYT's are a bunch of inveterate liars ans stupid people like Howard choke down everything they print.

Nothing has changed.

Shaun said...

"Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration."

If the Trump admin didn't know then so be it. But the constant lies, like the one highlighted above, are beneath the Office of the President of the United States.

victoria said...

Lies, lies and more lies by the Cheeto and his peeps.


Vicki from Pasadena

Drago said...

narciso: "so they were paid in emeralds, there were signal intercepts, what evidence do we actually have here,"

According to Dumb Lefty Mark and Howard, apparently a dossier has been prepared which shows Michael Cohen met with Taliban and russian representatives in Prague and Trump Tower servers have been "pinging" banks in Kabul with known russian connections and Carter Page gave a speech somewhere and there is supposedly a Kabul based black ledger which implicates Trump staffers and somebody paid someone to pee somewhere and is being blackmailed to get money to kill American soldiers and somebody allegedly has film of Trump eating 2 scoops of ice cream in an Afghani border town while improperly feeding Koi in a pond.

So to clarify: yes the dems really are going to rerun every play from the 2016 playbook.

And Howard and Inga and Dumb Lefty Mark and all the rest are going to fall for every one of hoaxes again.

Russia and the US have been arming and paying different factions in Afghanistan for literally 40 years.

The real reason this narrative was constructed is that finalizing the plans to move 4,000 troops out of Afghanistan is complete and the deep staters and dems want to stay there as well as the dems wanting to launch Russia Collusion Hoax 7.0.

Chuck said...

The reporting was not limited to the New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed the same reporting.

And so did the Washington Post.

Let us take President Trump at his word. That he was not briefed, or told about the intelligence. The questions raised are obvious:

Does the Administration say that there was no such intelligence? (Other western intelligence services have now indicated the intel was in fact true.)

Does the Administration say that the intellignece existed, but that Trump and Pence were not briefed? (That is the implication from the new DNI, John Ratcliffe.)

If Trump was not briefed about such a deadly serious matter, why not? What on earth could that explanation be?

If the intelligence existed, and even if Trump had not been briefed, why was no other action taken?

And what action should now be taken, if in fact a Russian bounty was paid to anyone for the killing of American and/or coalition sources?

The last question is rhetorical; what would Congressional Republicans be saying, if these exact same events had occurred during the Obama Administration?

wendybar said...

I'll take Richard Grenells opinion over anybody from the lying NYT's anyday…..https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2020/06/28/disgusting-how-you-politicize-intelligence-richard-grenell-owns-ted-lieu-in-heated-debate-over-nyt-russian-bounties-story/

Drago said...

Shaun: "If the Trump admin didn't know then so be it. But the constant lies, like the one highlighted above, are beneath the Office of the President of the United States."

You are the one lying because Trump administration challenging of the russians is easily the toughest since Reagan and across political, military and economic dimensions.

But at this point morons like Shaun are just going to run with the narrative because Team Dem/left needs all narrative oars in the water to keep from going over the edge and Durham appears to have the dems very very nervous.

Anybody see the latest dem primary results where Biden is running unopposed but only getting 58%, 65% ish of the dem primary vote?

On top of 50% of MI dem voters saying something is wrong with Biden.

wendybar said...

Let's get back to the fake Russian Collusion that the Times and their anonymous sources told them about....along with all the other fake news they spew....

wendybar said...

You dummies that are calling Trump Cheeto are losers.....I can't wait to taste the liberal tears when he wins again because all you have is hate, rioters and lying losers on your side.

Drago said...

Of course, this also comes in the same week we find out that it was indeed obama and Biden in direct control of the greatest scandal in American political history: the sabotaging of the peaceful transfer of power and East German-Stasi like weaponization of intel and law enforcement against domestic political opponents with the attempted framing of the President-Elect and then President.

Achilles said...

Shaun said...
"Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration."

If the Trump admin didn't know then so be it. But the constant lies, like the one highlighted above, are beneath the Office of the President of the United States.

Russia cares about one thing. The price of oil and Natural gas on the export market.

Trump has massively expanded US production of oil and natural gas.

Obama and Hillary tried to reduce US production, created a "Reset Button," and took millions of dollars in bribes from Russia.

Hillary and Obama were caught red handed soliciting the Steele Report from Russian sources in 2016.

You are a dumb person if you think Russia was not supporting Hillary in 2016.

narciso said...

And sochin is not the sharpest knife in the barrel.

Big Mike said...

Even if what the NYT says is true do they want PDT to start a war with Russia?

If they promise to take out New York City and San Francisco in the first wave of nukes, I'm all for war with Russia.

(Yes, I'm being sarcastic.)

Drago said...

Whitmer Reelection Treasurer LLR-lefty Chuck: "The reporting was not limited to the New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed the same reporting."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Its time once again for circular "reporting" and "confirmation"!

The Wash Post actually used the phrase "if true" in their "confirmation".

This is the same old democrat Russia collusion tactics all over again which FakeCon Lefty Chuck gobbles up and advances!

No, when the dems get exposed LLR-lefty Chuck always leaps to their defense....and with the release of Strzoks notes which is the smoking gun for obama and Biden being at the center of the entire russia collusion hoax and Flynn frane up its little wonder why #StrongDemDefender Chuck leapt into action!

LLR-lefty Chuck could not be more predictable...which is what Team Whitmer is counting on, particularly if LLR-lefty Chuck finds himself in a Detroit precinct as a "republican" (wink wink) poll watcher.

bbkingfish said...

Of course not. Trump doesn't do briefings, and our intelligence services are just the deep state or fake news or something like that.

narciso said...

The unit allegedly involved has only killed people by accident like the bystanders who were in salisbury, too much killing eve scripts

Bob Boyd said...

Impeach!

Drago said...

bbkingfish: "Of course not. Trump doesn't do briefings, and our intelligence services are just the deep state or fake news or something like that."

LOL

Yeah, this comment would have gone over much better in 2017 or 2018.....but its actually 2020 and we have lots and lots of documentation and testimony showing that what you think you are joking about is precisely what occurred.

My favorite one: Where the FBI sent in a Special Agent, supposedly to "brief" Trump, but was really there only to assess and gather evidence against Trump and Flynn for use in the coup attempt ("insurance policy") later.

Or how about how Comey send Strzok and Pientka in to "chat" with Flynn about whatever when it was really just about setting Flynn up with the Kislyak call which we knew all along was "legit" in Comey's own words but was used to frame Flynn. Comey literally bragged about this in an interview.

And of course, the best of the best of all non-"briefing" setups: Comey doing the limited hoax dossier brief to provide the "hook" to leak it to the media so the media could run with Christopher Steele's/Glenn Simpson's/Nellie Ohr's Hoax dossier...which CNN and then Buzzfeed immediately and happily did.

And on and on during Trumps first several years in office when specific items were placed in briefings by the obama holdovers from NSA or CIA or FBI in order to simply immediately leak them.

This has happened hundreds of times over the last 3.5 years.

So yeah bbkingfish, its a shame you don't have a time machine to go back to 2017 and write your comment when you could hide behind the lack of documentation and testimony proving you are full of crap.......but that time is not this time.

Narr said...

You Russophobic panty-wetters could spend your time more productively by learning Russian.

Narr
You know, for when Trump "wins" again and turns out to be Putin in disguise all along!

Francisco D said...

I do not doubt that the Russians were paying Afghans for killing Americans just as we did the same during the Soviet occupation. This should not be a surprise for anyone with some basic knowledge of how wars are conducted.

The only problem with Trump's response is that he shows us that he is not well versed in foreign policy.

IMO, Trump is in between the appeasement crowd (mostly Dems) and the hawks (Bolton and the neo cons). His instincts are business oriented and not in the old hard liner vs. pinko tradition.

hstad said...

Chuck said...
The reporting was not limited to the New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed the same reporting.

And so did the Washington Post.

6/28/20, 10:36 AM

LOL - so it must be true? Wow - Chuck maybe they got it from the same "anoymous" source - another "never-Trumper" or Obama hold-over. More likely it fits the MSM narrative - attack "Bad Orange Man" which you love to parrot daily.

Original Mike said...

I don't understand. Trump is in bed with Putin. The NYTs told me so.

bagoh20 said...

Without any reporting needed, I would assume this to be true, so it's really not news. Trump is so bought off by Putin that he ordered the killing of a couple hundred Russian troops in Syria. Not secretly through a third party, but directly. Trump is really bad at this obeying Putin stuff.

Imagine Trump saying an anonymous source told him Biden was paid off by the Russians. He could do that every day or so like the Press does to him. Guess who would suddenly not trust anonymous sources.

bagoh20 said...

If we just elected Hilary, the Russians would be our best ally, helping us around the world to enforce our national interests.

Maybe if we elect a Russian as President it will bring us all together, like Obama did with races relations.

Michael K said...

Chuck ? Is he hanging around again?

Chuck, aren't you due at a Whitmer rally or something ?

rehajm said...

A media tack from destruction. Clearly polling has verified the shift in political winds...

doctrev said...

At some future rally, Trump is going to start ragging on this. "So get this, we got some 'new intelligence' explaining why the Taliban's been killing American soldiers. It's not because they're terrorists. Not because they're criminals. Not even because we're in their country. No. It's because RUSSIA is paying them. That's the reason people get killed in Afghanistan. What a bunch of goddamn geniuses, huh?"

Of course the President thinks getting intelligence briefings from these complete fucking idiots is a waste of his time.

Two-eyed Jack said...

You know, I'm starting to rethink the movie Dr. Strangelove. Remember the part where the Soviet ambassador says "our source was the New York Times" and we're supposed to believe that it's true?

effinayright said...

You gotta love the rabid lefties who think Russia is still the USSR.

Russia has a GDP the size of....wait for it....Italy.


Someone said a long time ago that the USSR was a third-world country with first-world weapons.

But after the first Gulf War, when we utterly destroyed Iraq's Soviet-supplied weaponry and with it their battle doctrine, the West learned that soviet military power was just another Potemkin village.

Now, Russia is a third-world country with third-world weapons, an economic basket case surviving on its oil, gas and mining industries. Aside from its aging military technology it offers NOTHING in the way of finished goods to the global economy. Even the huge Antonov cargo planes are made in the Ukraine.

The idea that Russia somehow controls Trump and the US is utterly laughable. Yet Howard, ARM and their fellow travelers just gotta believe that Putin is pulling the strings.

MayBee said...

I know how to solve this, if Russia is indeed trying to kill our soldiers in the ME.
Send them pallets of cash in an airplane! Billions of dollars in cash. Right?

narciso said...

as I suspected,

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/06/dni-ratcliffe-debunks-nyt-report-trump-briefed-in-march-about-russia-putting-bounties-on-u-s-soldiers/

they got bupkis,

Clyde said...

"Taliban-linked militants": "We've decided to stop killing American infidels."

Russians: "What if we give you a million rubles for each one you kill?"

"Taliban-linked militants": "Oh, that's different, since you are offering us financial incentives. We have changed our minds and will once again kill American infidels."

Seriously, Russians offering to pay "Taliban-linked militants" to kill American soldiers is like someone paying sailors to go to a whorehouse. They were going to do it anyway!

Narr said...

What, and who, the hell isn't "linked"?

How is the bounty paid? Are The Linked Ones required to bring an ear, or a dick, to prove they've earned the money?

Like Putin has enough cash to compete with the druglords. Like the warlords would let him play the big shot on their turf. They BEAT THE FUCKING SOVIET UNION; it's more likely Putin's paying them not to cause trouble for him (if he's paying anything at all).

Narr
If The Linked Ones are taking Putin's money he's a bigger fool than the NYT

mikee said...

To wholelottasplainin': You left out, "Nukes on missiles that work." That makes the Russians an opponent who must be taken seriously. Get rid of that problem, and the Russians become a backwater supplier of oil and natgas who nobody really needs to care about.

narciso said...

Diuble bupkis


https://mobile.twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1277329949792391171

Drago said...

BREAKING NEWS (from a real journalist):

Catherine Herridge Twitter, 1:56pm 28 Jun 20

DEVELOPING: A senior intel official tells @CBSNews the GRU/Taliban bounty allegations were not contained in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) which is the highly classified, daily summary of national security issues delivered to the President, key cabinet secretaries + advisers..

The official confirmed the NSC has been doing “due diligence,” and going back through their files since the story broke Friday, and they have not found the “intelligence assessment” described in media reporting. The official said the review is ongoing, but given current...

talks with the Taliban, intel about a GRU operation involving the Taliban, targeting US forces would have risen to the level of inclusion in the PDB. @CBSNews

In less than 12 hours ANOTHER in a 4 year string of democrat/lefty/LLR-lefty russia collusion lies EXPLODES!

Let me guess: Steve Bannon made our Althouse usual lefty suspects lie about this.

cubanbob said...

No doubt Chuck & Company believe the Taliban were quietly herding their goats, tending their opium poppies and playing polo with the heads of their tribal enemies until Putin offered them cash to kill Americans. Only NYT readers believe such things. No ordinary person is that big and gullible fool.

Narayanan said...

Seriously, Russians offering to pay "Taliban-linked militants" to kill American soldiers is like someone paying sailors to go to a whorehouse. They were going to do it anyway!
----------============
true enough ; also very cheap way of meddling in USA elections ; as good as (without) paying the media for planted stories

Bunkypotatohead said...

I thought Putin was Trump's puppetmaster. Why would he be doing things that would get Trump replaced?

Nichevo said...

Shaun said...
"Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration."

If the Trump admin didn't know then so be it. But the constant lies, like the one highlighted above, are beneath the Office of the President of the United States.


Oh Shaun, who was the last US president to not just intentionally, deliberately kill 200 Russians, but make them take it and like it? Reagan? Ike? Woodrow Racist Wilson? It is your commentary which is lower than a snake's belly.

I've already asked for serious engagement on this question, its meaning, significance, what to do about it, but Garbage Howie seems to feel better with his clown nose on, and none of you prating gibbons seem to aspire to more than flinging poo.

rcocean said...

How many American troops have been killed in Afghanistan? Why, is this coming out now?Think of it we've been in Afghanistan for over 16 years (!). Of the 2,300 that died, a grand total of 61 died in 2017-2020. That's "died" Not just KIA.

During the Biden-Obama Administration 1,700 Us Soldier died in Afghanistan. So why didn't Biden do anything to Russia for helping to kill 1,700 US Soldiers?

For every ONE soldier who died in Afghanistan under Trump, THIRTY died under Biden-Obama. Even if Russia was responsible for all 60 USA deaths under Trump, Biden and Obama killed 30 times as many US Soldiers.