Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein reported there is no evidence that President Trump discussed supposed Russian bounties to kill U.S. troops in classified phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
CNN’s sources, the Watergate sleuth wrote in a sprawling report published on Monday, said Trump and Putin discussed the U.S. president’s desire to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, but the two leaders never broached the topic of bounties that have now been widely reported in the media.
This comes after the Trump administration denied a New York Times report that said he was briefed in March by U.S. intelligence that a Russian spy unit offered secret bounties to Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops and other coalition forces in Afghanistan and has, so far, refused to take any retaliatory action.
Trump tweeted on Sunday that “intel” had just informed him the information on the bounties was not credible. John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, released a statement on Saturday saying, “I have confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times.”
The Kremlin and the Taliban have also denied Russian-offered bounties.
Bernstein also reported sources who said Trump’s unpreparedness and incompetence in conversations with foreign leaders convinced senior U.S. officials that he poses a danger to the national security of the United States.
