Former national security adviser John Bolton refused to say whether he briefed President Trump on the issue of Russia placing bounties on the heads of U.S. troops.
President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice said on Sunday that she was confident that Bolton, her predecessor, would have told Trump about the Russian bounties as soon as the information was available in 2019. CBS host Margaret Brennan later asked Bolton on Face the Nation if he did what Rice described, but he did not directly answer.
“I’ve said in countless other interviews, I’m not gonna disclose classified information. I’ve got a struggle with the president trying to repress my book on that score already. I will say this: All intelligence is distributed along the spectrum of uncertainty. And this intelligence in 2020 by the administration’s own admission was deemed credible enough to give to our allies,” Bolton said.
“So the notion that you only give the really, completely, 100% verified intelligence to the president would mean you give him almost nothing. And that’s just not the way the system works. And it’s certainly not a decision made only by the briefer who briefs the president twice a week. That’s a decision that, at least when I was there, would have been made by the director of national intelligence, the director of the CIA, myself, and the briefer together,” he added.
Last week, the Associated Press reported that Bolton personally briefed the president on the issue in person last year while he was working in the administration. Trump and members of his administration have denied that the president was briefed on the issue. The president said that he was not briefed because the intelligence community deemed the information not credible.
Rice told Meet the Press that she does not believe that Trump was not briefed on the issue by Bolton.
“I don’t buy this story that he [President Trump] was never briefed,” Rice said. “I believe that over a year ago … my successor John Bolton would have walked straight into the Oval Office, as I would have, and informed the president of this intelligence.”
