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GOP SKEPTICISM ABOUT THAT RUSSIAN ‘BOUNTY’ STORY: Here’s the view of well-informed Hill Republicans about the New York Times scoop, “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says.” “It sounds like something Russia would do,” said one Republican lawmaker. “The Russians are a very capable force,” said another. “They’ve had connections in Afghanistan that go back a long way, and they would love nothing more than to kill Americans.”
So there are no illusions about Russia. “If Putin can f–k with us, he’s going to do it,” said the second lawmaker. “We are constantly monitoring the Russians’ malign activities in Afghanistan. It’s no secret.”
That said, they are skeptical about the Times story and related commentary. “It’s entirely possible the intelligence was too tenuous, or contradicted by other intelligence, etc., to act on,” the first Republican said. Said the second: “They” — meaning the people who leaked the story — “cherry-picked something that’s old, and they turned it into fake news.”
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Bottom line, they suspect someone in the government misrepresented a legitimate issue — What are the Russians doing now in Afghanistan? — to accuse President Trump of inaction in the face of another threat from Putin. They believe there’s an agenda behind it, but they’re not yet sure what it is. It might be the old Russia-Russia-Russia crowd in the Intelligence Community taking one more hit at the president on their favorite topic. Or it might be sources in the Defense Department who want to hobble Trump’s plan to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan. Or some combination of both.
Or perhaps foreign sources as well — the Times cited sources who said, “The intelligence has been treated as a closely held secret, but the administration expanded briefings about it this week — including sharing information about it with the British government, whose forces are among those said to have been targeted.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are accusing Trump of the worst. “This is as bad as it gets, and yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on ABC Sunday. “With him, all roads lead to Putin.” As she has before, Pelosi speculated that the Russians have something on the president — “politically, personally, financially, or whatever it is.”
What next? Lawmakers — and also the public — need to find out exactly what was going on. What, specifically, is the intelligence on the Russian activities in question? How good is it? And what is the U.S. doing to counter Russian efforts in Afghanistan? And how do all that fit into the larger picture of U.S. efforts to counter Russia around the world?
But the leak might make all that harder to learn. “We are still investigating the alleged intelligence referenced in recent media reporting and will brief the president and congressional leaders at the appropriate time,” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a statement Monday. “This is the analytic process working the way it should. Unfortunately, unauthorized disclosures now jeopardize our ability to ever find out the full story with respect to these allegations.”
