WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump was never briefed on intelligence that Russia had put a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan because there wasn’t corroborating evidence.
If the word “Trump” is not included in every sentence, it’s not worth reading.
They should actually have to verify Trump’s personal intelligence before they brief him on anything further.
The idea that only verified intelligence makes its way into the daily brief is ludicrous. I would hope that red hot intelligence would be shared with the caveat that the information hasn’t yet been verified. I mean the President is a consumer of Fox News which rarely verifies its stories.
Duh…Putin’s Orange Poodle gets briefings from the Kremlin…
Besides…why would Stable Genus need briefing since he knows it all!
Truth be told…Putin’s Orange Poodle has the best words…
There is no good explanation or excuse they can make. They’re checkmated. They keep coming out with these contradictory statements about the situation and they keep getting shot down instantly like ducks in a shooting gallery. It’s just pathetic at this point.
This business of “verified” intelligence reminds me of Condi Rice’s testimony to the 9/11 commission, testimony which struck me on its face as perjurious for various reasons.
But the relevant thing was when a commissioner asked Condi why they didn’t act on intelligence warnings, even if they were incomplete: “well, gee, it’s not like we had the tail numbers of the planes . . .”
If something has been proven correct and true to a legal standard, it will have been hashed out in public for a while: which by definition means that it’s no longer secret intelligence that needs to be rushed to the president’s attention, because he already will have already have read it in the newspapers.
Of course, the administration is simply playing on the public’s ignorance of the finer points of intelligence analysis to deflect blame from Trump. Simultaneously, they are able to throw out red herrings about whether the briefings were oral or written, when they occurred, what Trump knew at which precise point in time, etc., to get the media, in Pavlovian fashion, to dive down the rabbit hole of “the administration says this, Senate Republicans say that, House Democrats complain about not being briefed,” etc., etc.
So then it becomes the quintessential Washington Story, whereupon the average imbecile says, “gee, I can’t make heads or tails of this thing.”
The Lincoln Project with another hit for extra bases.
I watched John Stewart’s movie Irresistible last evening. I am afraid there is more truth to it than we chattering news consumers want to admit. Our media engages in a dance with each other and the politicians and political parties ensuring maximum eyeballs stare at different versions of the same picture, real stories are missed and nothing is ever accomplished.
This verified intelligence or unverified intelligence story is a prime example of the way our political/media class handles a problem. They have turned what is a giant foreign policy mess and a symptom of the decline of the US from world superpower to a second rate country into a process story. Some politicians are probably fund raising off the story already.
Pretty soon this little story will be replaced with another side show diversion. We will never be able to examine why we (our leaders?) are quietly allowing America to recede into history. Where are the leaders who really want to solve real problems? Have they all moved to China? Russia? The EU?
Do folks remember when Donald Trump began receiving intelligence briefings as a Candidate? He attended with Michael Flynn and Flynn became confrontational with the agent conducting the briefing. This President is corrupt, and has routinely badmouthed his Intelligence Agencies for investigating himself and his Russian enablers. Nothing he or his spokespeople say about his knowledge is trustworthy or credible.
Weak. And a surefire indicator that it’ll get weaker.
That’s what happens when you got nothing.
Wait until the WH starts talking to Military families and blaming it all on a list of excuses.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter. The base wants noises, not actual explanations.
Don’t tell me about the the threats, tell me how to cover them up and get bonus points from putin.
But he won not just with the base but the relatively normal Republican voters who didn’t really want him but held their noses and fell in line. There’s a lot of them just sane enough to know he didn’t really do a bang-up job with the pandemic and they’re not going to just shrug over a president who doesn’t care if Russia is paying to get American soldiers killed. If people have suspicions about you that you repeatedly confirm there comes a breaking point.
The “but the Base doesn’t care” statements which pop up in just about every comments section from Minute One of Trump’s MadMinistration amount to an equivalent of an Army motorized platoon heading into an engagement with designated tire-flatteners.
No one should give a fuck about converting the “base”.
We should be concentrating with Chess-Grandmaster precision on BEATING EVERY REPUBLICAN WE POSSIBLY CAN BY (1) TRYING TO REACH EVERY PERSUADABLE VOTER POSSIBLE AND (2) MAKING SURE THEIR VOTES COUNT
That’s it.
Until there’s corroborating evidence that makes it 100% certain and, even then, unless it doesn’t hurt Trump or contradict the lies, delusions, or conspiracy theories he’s telling himself and others … it’s a hoax - fake news - bad intelligence. And the people trying to tell it to him with crayon pictures, stick figures, and 3rd-grade level one-syllable words are all part of the deep state.
And that’s if he even bothers to listen (forget reading) and has any interest or comprehension at all (not likely unless it directly involves him).
Oh, ffs! He isn’t going to know what is being discussed. You may as well talk to the elelphant in the room! Is it any wonder that he can’t recall and that he confabulates continually?
Paint this in the street in front of DNC headquarters.
BTW: Joe Scarbrough went off on a rant this morning that was a beautiful thing to behold. I seldom have much use for him, but he was reading last rites to every stupid-ass Conservative and Evangelical Christian who falls for the “let’s go out to a rally where they won’t social distance and wear masks” line of BS. I was stunned by the eloquence.
Some presidents are said to have been voracious consumers of their briefings; Trump, by contrast, is known to demand only the sparest details.
And according to recent news reports, he’s known to throw a tantrum about any suggestion that Russia might be a threat in any way, so his briefers have learned to tell him the absolute minimum about Russia in order to get him to listen to the rest of the briefing.