Former national security adviser Susan Rice warned that conflicting reports about whether President Trump received intelligence briefings relaying reports that Russia paid members of the Taliban to kill American troops in the Middle East are further evidence of an executive branch in chaos.
“Everybody in the senior national security team gets this briefing six out of seven days a week. So, even if the president doesn’t read his PDB, as it’s known, which apparently he doesn’t often do, then surely somebody around him would come in with this information and make sure that he was aware,” Rice said Monday evening.
“You know, the job of the national security adviser, not to mention the director of national intelligence, secretary of defense, any number of other officials, is to tell the president the hard truths that he may not want to hear. And produce a plan to address them. That’s the job,” she added.
The White House said Monday that Trump had not received an intelligence briefing on the matter.
“There is no consensus within the intelligence community on these allegations,” said Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, during a briefing with reporters. She noted there were “dissenting opinions” among members of the intelligence community regarding the veracity of the reported bounty placed by the Russian government on the heads of U.S. service members.
The New York Times reported last week that Trump was briefed on the reports in March, an assertion the White House has denied.
Rice said if Trump’s top intelligence officials truly kept him out of the loop on such serious allegations, regardless of their credibility, they were derelict in their duties to the commander in chief.
“If those people are not doing it, then they all should be run out of the White House and the rest of the agencies,” Rice said. “And if they did do it, which is what I believe is more likely the case, then again, we have evidence of a president utterly unwilling to stand up for American interests and rather serving Vladimir Putin’s interests.”
Citing several unnamed sources, the Associated Press reported late Monday that Trump was briefed on the intelligence as early as 2019, including at least one written report in his daily intelligence briefing and a briefing from John Bolton, then-national security adviser.
Bolton made no mention of the episode as part of his widely criticized tell-all book that alleges widespread misconduct by Trump.
Rice, who is on the short list of possible running mates for presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, called the episode “one of those jaw-dropping moments” that calls into question the loyalty of the president.
“It’s very hard to digest,” Rice said. “Either President Trump acted in a fashion that is profoundly disloyal to the United States of America and our men and women in uniform, or he has abdicated his responsibility as commander in chief and is presiding over the most dysfunctional and ineffective national security apparatus in American history that leaves American troops vulnerable to Russian attack.”
