The CIA requested the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the leak of classified intelligence related to an alleged plot by a Russian spy unit to offer bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to target U.S. and other coalition troops in Afghanistan.
Robert O’Brien, who has served as President Trump’s national security adviser since last September, made the revelation while talking with reporters outside the White House on Monday, defending the Trump administration’s handling of the “raw intelligence.” He said the military has put in place force protection measures as a precaution and condemned the leak that Trump national security officials have repeatedly argued has hampered the U.S. Intelligence Community’s ability to get to the truth.
“Some leaker, whoever it is, and I understand that there has been a crimes report filed by the CIA with the Department of Justice — some leaker took it upon themselves in an effort to attack the president or maybe promote some policy agenda to leak allegations that now make it almost impossible to find out what happened,” O’Brien said.
The national security adviser, who previously worked as Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, said that if the intelligence community ends up concluding that the intelligence is verified, then there will likely be consequences for Russia.
“First of all, if it’s true, there’ll be a lot of outrage,” O’Brien said. “But what I want to get into is on this Russia issue. There has been no administration since the end of the Cold War that has done more to push back on Russia — as our Cold War presidents did against the Soviet Union — that this president, including sending Javelin anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine, which the previous Obama-Biden refused to do.”
The CIA declined to comment to the Washington Examiner.
The New York Times reported Friday that a U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that a Russian spy unit paid Taliban-connected militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. and other coalition troops even as the Trump administration sought to reach a peace deal involving the Taliban and the Afghan government. The New York Times further reported that Trump was briefed about the bounties in the spring and that officials developed a list of options to respond, but the outlet’s sources said the administration had yet to authorize any of the actions. National security officials have insisted that Trump had never been briefed on these allegations until the past few days.
“I’m not going to get into specifically what the president has been briefed on. But he’s fully aware of the situation,” O’Brien said, adding that in the past few days, “the president has been fully briefed.”
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who last month was sworn in as the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence where he oversees the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, said Monday that “U.S. and coalition force protection is a critical priority for both the president and the intelligence community” and “the selective leaking of any classified information disrupts the vital interagency work to collect, assess, and mitigate threats and places our forces at risk.” He added, “It is also, simply put, a crime.”
O’Brien said a female CIA officer, whom he described as a “senior career civil servant,” made the decision not to brief Trump on the alleged plot early on “because she didn’t have confidence in the intelligence.” This, the national security adviser said, was the right call, “knowing the facts that I know now.”
The New York Times cited “two officials familiar with the matter” when reporting that “American officials provided a written briefing in late February,” likely on Feb. 27, “to President Trump laying out their conclusion” about the GRU-Taliban bounty plot, adding that the investigation has “focused in part” on a car bombing in April 2019 which killed three Marines. The Associated Press reported that “top officials in the White House were aware” of the alleged Russian bounty plot “in early 2019.”
“Because somebody decided to leak this intelligence while we were trying to get to the bottom of it, that may never be possible now, and that’s a shame,” O’Brien said. “Whoever the leaker is should be really ashamed of themselves.”
Since the reports emerged last week, Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have raised questions about what Trump knew and when and whether the Trump administration has appropriately held Russia accountable for its actions. Two dozen U.S. service members have been killed in combat in Afghanistan since the start of 2019. The United States and the Taliban struck a shaky peace agreement in February.
The Taliban denied accepting such bounties from Russia, and the Russian Embassy in the U.S. called the reporting “fake news.” Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Saturday that Trump’s “entire presidency has been a gift to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but this is beyond the pale.”
O’Brien asserted the Trump administration handled the bounty allegations appropriately, noting CIA Director Gina Haspel “distributed” some of the raw intelligence to U.S. and coalition forces even before it was verified so troops could take force protection precautions.
“We did everything right in this case,” O’Brien said. “The real story here — and that’s what is so sad because we’re in such a polarized time now — the real story is that we did everything right.”
The national security adviser added that the “Gang of Eight,” which includes congressional party and intelligence panel leaders, will be briefed Wednesday by the Intelligence Community, “and I’m sure that’ll be a great briefing for them.”
