Russia offered bounties to kill american troops. (2 Viewers)

[The moose]

Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says (Published 2020)

The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment.

www.nytimes.com

An amazing read.

Trump was told about this in March. Then tries to get Russia back into the g8.

The timing is just plain horrible.

 

[JimEverett]

So you don't consider deep throat (who turned out to be the FBI's #2 man, Mark Felt) to be an unnamed source. And you don't consider the FBI to be part of the intelligence community? That's odd because I believe that they consider themselves part of the intelligence community.

Watergate broke through public sources - an arrest, a tie between one of those arrested and CREEP - the case was driven by public sources. Deep Throat helped the reporters, but was not anywhere close to being a primary source that drove the story.

But again, do you think the public is better off not knowing what has been reported or do you think the information should be kept from the public? My belief is that anytime our government is engaged in anything that the American people would object to, there is a need for the American people to know. I, for one, damn sure believe that Russians paying bounties to kill American soldiers and the president having been briefed about it and doing nothing for 1 year sure warrants the American public knowing about it.

I am saying that intelligence sources should not be trusted as giving anything like the truth. There were multiple intelligence sources and assessments that claimed Iraq had WMDs and that they were going to use them. I think it is safe to conclude that not everything in the Steele dossier was true. I could go on and on. It is the nature of intelligence that it has a high degree of falsity

 

[efil4]

What a surprise. There wasn't anything evidence to corroborate those claims of the Russians paying bounties.

Pay close attention to the last two sentences in the first paragraph.

Now explain to me how the NSA and WH administration prepare for something that POTUS/Admin has never been briefed on?

Or is that saying the Administration was briefed, just not POTUS?

POTUS is briefed on EVERYTHING - corroborated or not. Period. If not verified/corroborated, he is told this. But he is briefed. The same intelligence apparatus you have LITTLE to NO trust in, is the SAME intelligence apparatus that you are quoting here to show "nothing happened".

i cant even begin to understand your logic other than "when it fits the narrative"

Its getting comical here. You can only contort so much.

 

[bdb13]

What a surprise. There wasn't anything evidence to corroborate those claims of the Russians paying bounties.

At this point I don't know what the truth is and what isn't.. is there evidence indicating what's in your post here is the actual truth?

 

[Saintamaniac]

Watergate broke through public sources - an arrest, a tie between one of those arrested and CREEP - the case was driven by public sources. Deep Throat helped the reporters, but was not anywhere close to being a primary source that drove the story.

There were multiple intelligence sources and assessments that claimed Iraq had WMDs and that they were going to use them. I think it is safe to conclude that not everything in the Steele dossier was true. I could go on and on. It is the nature of intelligence that it has a high degree of falsity

I don't claim to know how the intelligence community with respect to informing the president of a possible situation works. However, I would suspect that if they did get or develop information that they felt was of such an urgent nature that they decided to put it on W.I.R., inform our allies and develop response plans to present to the president, it was based on information that they felt comfortable with a level of truthfulness to present.

I understand that you are questioning the reliability of the information. That's natural. But you also seem to be saying that because it's not 100% reliable and that mistakes were made in the past that no further information should ever be trusted unless it's 100% verifiable. Is that what you contend because your argument from my standpoint is making that case.

 

[Ayo]

At this point I don't know what the truth is and what isn't.. is there evidence indicating what's in your post here is the actual truth?

this battle of journalistic credibility was going on before today, and I imagine it's not going to get much clearer:

 

[insidejob]

At this point I don't know what the truth is and what isn't.. is there evidence indicating what's in your post here is the actual truth?

Of course Herridge is trying to save face today.

 

[insidejob]

this battle of journalistic credibility was going on before today, and I imagine it's not going to get much clearer:

Damn you. Got me by two minutes while I was digging up the tweet.

 

[bdb13]

this battle of journalistic credibility was going on before today, and I imagine it's not going to get much clearer:

Yeah, SFL is such a skeptic that I figured there must be some hard evidence since he seemed to believe one side over the other.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, SFL is such a skeptic that I figured there must be some hard evidence since he seemed to believe one side over the other.

Nothing at all wrong with a little skepticism. As Jim mentioned above, there have been more than enough examples of bad information coming through "unnamed sources" that some healthy skepticism is warranted. I was certainly wanting to hear more on these allegations before believing them. Though I would prefer to see the hard evidence of a smoking gun on the daily briefing reports, I am leaning toward believing that it is all basically true. Add to the other reports the fact that there was no readout on the three unusual calls with Putin in April and I'd say something is amiss that the country should be made aware of at the very least.

 

[bdb13]

Nothing at all wrong with a little skepticism. As Jim mentioned above, there have been more than enough examples of bad information coming through "unnamed sources" that some healthy skepticism is warranted. I was certainly wanting to hear more on these allegations before believing them. Though I would prefer to see the hard evidence of a smoking gun on the daily briefing reports, I am leaning toward believing that it is all basically true. Add to the other reports the fact that there was no readout on the three unusual calls with Putin in April and I'd say something is amiss that the country should be made aware of at the very least.

Yeah I agree. No issue with SFL being skeptical of the claims from anonymous sources.. was just curious as to what is leading him to believe the administration is telling the truth.

 

[JimEverett]

Nothing at all wrong with a little skepticism. As Jim mentioned above, there have been more than enough examples of bad information coming through "unnamed sources" that some healthy skepticism is warranted. I was certainly wanting to hear more on these allegations before believing them. Though I would prefer to see the hard evidence of a smoking gun on the daily briefing reports, I am leaning toward believing that it is all basically true. Add to the other reports the fact that there was no readout on the three unusual calls with Putin in April and I'd say something is amiss that the country should be made aware of at the very least.

It is not just skepticism with intelligence either. Its the whole nature of intelligence information.
Suppose that Trump was briefed on an intelligence assessment that made these claims. Then. . . . ? There is a whole lot of different ways to interpret to and react to such an assessment.

I mean IF this information did make its way into a Presidential Briefing then clearly some people with a lot of experience with this stuff deemed it very important. So, if that is the case I am not trying to say dismiss this stuff as completely irrelevant. I just think the way people have these immediate reactions and emotonal blowups over this sort of reporting is not healthy. Like, "Trump is Putin's birch"

 

[insidejob]

Fixing my post: I think the money transfers being traced is proof that it happened and there's no way Trump was not briefed.

 

[bdb13]

If Trump and Co. Are lying about this stuff it's amazing that they've boxed themselves into a terrible position here.

 

[samiam5211]

Man just lock Joe in his basement and keep hitting Trump with this stuff.. I'm pretty sure there can be a new something every couple of days up until the election. It's kind of like Trump's strategy from last time, just reversing it on him. Obviously it's a very easy to bait Trump into digging himself a deeper hole.

Yea, Trump being President is the worst thing for the Trump campaign right now.

Joe would be wise to just let that play itself out.

 

[SaintForLife]

Of course Herridge is trying to save face today.

Considering Herridge's credibility vs the credibility of the unnamed intelligence sources for the last 3 year, I would side with her. But I would still remain skeptical of any unamed sources until evidence is produced.

 

[SaintForLife]

Pay close attention to the last two sentences in the first paragraph.

Now explain to me how the NSA and WH administration prepare for something that POTUS/Admin has never been briefed on?

Or is that saying the Administration was briefed, just not POTUS?

POTUS is briefed on EVERYTHING - corroborated or not. Period. If not verified/corroborated, he is told this. But he is briefed. The same intelligence apparatus you have LITTLE to NO trust in, is the SAME intelligence apparatus that you are quoting here to show "nothing happened".

i cant even begin to understand your logic other than "when it fits the narrative"

Its getting comical here. You can only contort so much.

The POTUS is not briefed on all uncorroborated intelligence. Where did you get that from?

There is a big difference between unnamed intelligence sources in articles(especially considering their horrible track record in regards to Russia the last 3 years) and an official government agency press release. I don't blindy believe the government, but in regards to Russia I have zero trust in unnamed intelligence sources. Until I see evidence that corroborate those unnamed sources I don't believe them.

 

[SaintForLife]

"According to three officials familiar with the intelligence." They need to produce the evidence otherwise it's not anymore believable than they other articles.

 

[brandon]

"According to three officials familiar with the intelligence." They need to produce the evidence otherwise it's not anymore believable than they other articles.

So SFL,

Once we are inevitably presented with corroborating evidence both that the bounty program existed and that Trump knew about it, what will your argument in support of Trump be then?

I'm not doubting you'll have one, I'm just curious what the plan is.