NYT: Russians paid Afghans to kill American troops

[GMDino]

(06-29-2020, 09:28 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nancy was invited for a briefing tomorrow.

Oh.  That's nice of him.

[Dill]

(06-29-2020, 08:04 PM)6andcounting Wrote: If both the sources for the NYT and the AP are an anonymous, then how do we know it has been independently confirmed?

According to Bels' link, Bolton says he briefed Trump personally. That would have been back in 2019.

Putin has already denied the report is True.

Once again Trump is faced with the choice of whom to believe--

Putin or his own Intel community? His first tweet on the subject appeared to agree with Putin.

[Dill]

(06-29-2020, 08:42 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Privately Clinton said "officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al-Queda-like group" and told the Prime Minister of Egypt "We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the flim".  Both of this statements came less than 24 hours after the attack. At the same time Clintons deputy chief of staff said in an internal email "We're not saying the violence in Libya erupted 'over inflammatory videos'".
Less than 3 days after the attack officials in the state department were emailing each other "'it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence. It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists.”

I wouldn't want to go further discussing Benghazi here, other than to say it may exemplify how the public often lacks knowledge of the process by which the intel is collected and vetted, and other political players can use that lack of knowledge. Also, anyone at State communicating with foreign leaders has to be on the same page with the WH, not with his/her family members in a private email. But ultimately, it is the findings of the intel committees that people should be reading, as these give a completer picture of why emails may say one thing one day and another thing another day, without implying coverup. 

Shifting this issue of how the intel process works to Kayleigh's press briefing today on the Russian Bounty, it is really inconceivable that Trump did not hear about this last year. And according to Rachel Maddow, it appears the bounty actually resulted in US deaths.

The claim that there were "dissenting opinions" in the intel community cannot be a valid reason for not telling Trump. Same for the claim the intel was not yet "verified." Intel is routinely presented at NSC meetings and in PDBs with varying levels of confidence, and dissenting opinions are included. For issues potentially of great consequence, no one waits for absence of dissension or "verification" before presenting some findings at least to the president. Waiting could prevent timely reaction. Presidents make the final calculation of costs, benefits and risks. Also, it is the responsibility of the NSA and deputies to prioritize findings and MAKE SURE that the most consequential reach the president.

Further, it's not as if Bolton walked into the room one day and said "Oh by the way, Russians paying bounties" etc. And then left it all to Trump to think about. For an issue that serious, people would be set to preparing options--diplomatic and military--for the president's consideration.  You know I don't admire Bolton, but I really doubt he would have allowed that preparation to pass on his own say so.  I won't be surprised if it were ordered done, and then sat on.

And the Bounty would definitely be the kind of classified intel which Bolton could not put in his book. Now that it's leaked, maybe he can give us a better sense of what is broken in the NSC, the top of the chain where intel products come to rest, though there may still be controls on what he has to say.

Hell to pay if Trump refused to act on this while trying to get Russia back into the G-8 and inviting Putin for a state visit.

[Belsnickel]

(06-29-2020, 08:04 PM)6andcounting Wrote: If both the sources for the NYT and the AP are an anonymous, then how do we know it has been independently confirmed?

Because the AP used their own sources. They didn't just take the NYT word for it. That means they independently confirmed the story. That's how investigative journalism works.

[GMDino]

(06-30-2020, 07:02 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Because the AP used their own sources. They didn't just take the NYT word for it. That means they independently confirmed the story. That's how investigative journalism works.

I shared this on Facebook and while it is a rough generalization it sums up what I see as a misunderstanding by the general public when it comes to "the media" and "news".

Quote:Investigative reporters investigate and report.

Reporters report.
News readers read the news.
Commentators commentate on the news.
Viewers/Readers take in all of that and must understand where the information came from and then decide what to do with it.
Know the difference and then blame "the media" for what you hear.
Thanks for listening.

[GMDino]

Trump retweeted a Republican congressman who was in the briefing and he blames the NY Times for the death of soldiers and have blood on their hands because they reported on an ongoing investigation.  Not that it isn't true, not that the POTUS was or wasn't told.

[GMDino]

There is always a tweet...

Isn't the WORLD tired of hearing President Obama say he knew nothing about anything-time to take responsibility for all of your mistakes!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2013

[masonbengals fan]

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/30/media-are-playing-games-yet-again-with-anonymous-russia-leaks/

[fredtoast]

(06-29-2020, 08:42 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Yeah, your right. It wasn't the day of the attack the President of Libya told Face the Nation it was a planned and orchestrated attack. It was September 16 - so 5 days later. And the mortar attack was not 12 hours long - the mortar attack happened about 12 hours after the initial attack. As well, the promotional trailers and bits an pieces of the video were released over 2 months prior, the full Arabic sub-title version was just released in Septe,ber.

However, there were no protests around the consulate. It was gun fire and explosions from the attackers that created that started it all. They weren't hidden amoung protestors as there were no protestors there.The Obama administration publicly said it was because of protesting a video, but internally they were saying the exact opposite.

Privately Clinton said "officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al-Queda-like group" and told the Prime Minister of Egypt "We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the flim".  Both of this statements came less than 24 hours after the attack. At the same time Clintons deputy chief of staff said in an internal email "We're not saying the violence in Libya erupted 'over inflammatory videos'".

Less than 3 days after the attack officials in the state department were emailing each other "'it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence. It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists.” "


Below are more details on the above quotes, as we'll as other statements said internally that contradicted the public statements.





9/11/2012
[b]11:12 p.m.[/b]: Clinton sends an email to her daughter, Chelsea, that reads: “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al Qaeda-like group: The Ambassador, whom I handpicked and a young communications officer on temporary duty w a wife and two young children. Very hard day and I fear more of the same tomorrow.” (The email was discovered in 2015 by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. It is written to “Diane Reynolds,” which was Chelsea Clinton’s alias.)

[b]Sept. 12:[/b] Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, sends an email prior to Obama’s Rose Garden address to Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor for strategic communications at the White House, and others that says, “There was not really much violence in Egypt. And we are not saying that the violence in Libya erupted ‘over inflammatory videos.’”

[b]Sept. 12, 3:04 p.m.[/b]: Clinton calls then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and tells him, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.” An account of that call was contained in an email written by State Department Public Affairs Officer Lawrence Randolph. The email was released by the House Benghazi committee.

[b]Sept. 12, 6:06 p.m.[/b]: Beth Jones, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Near East, sends an email to top State Department officials that reads in part: “[T]he group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic extremists.” (An excerpt of Jones’ email was read by Rep. Trey Gowdy at the May 8, 2013, House oversight hearing.)

Sept. 13: CNN reports that unnamed “State Department officials” say the incident in Benghazi was a “clearly planned military-type attack” unrelated to the anti-Muslim movie.



[b]Sept. 14:[/b] A State Department public information official writes in an email: “t is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence. It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists.” (The email was released Oct. 31, 2015, by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, and was contained in the Benghazi committee report issued June 28, 2016. The name of the person who sent the email and the person or persons who received the email were redacted. However, the person who wrote the email is identified in the committee report as a “public information officer from the Embassy in Tripoli,” and the email says it reflects “our view at Embassy Tripoli.” It also says, “I have discussed this with [name redacted] and he shares PAS’s view.” PAS stands for Public Affairs Section.)




https://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/

I have already admitted that it was a few days before the Obama administration said it was clearly an act of terrorism instead of a riot over a videotape.  So I don't know what your point is.

The GIANT SCANDAL was over in days and the Obama administration neither gained or lost anything over the way the information was presented.  the fact that Republicans still obsess over a "scandal" that resulted in nothing shows how desperate they are to find something to complain about.

Seriously, what was the damage from that scandal?  What did the Obama administration gain from the "cover up"?

it has been investigated SEVEN TIMES by REPUBLICANS in congress and they found no damaging misconduct.  Time to let it go.

[fredtoast]

(06-30-2020, 10:05 AM)masonbengals fan Wrote: https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/30/media-are-playing-games-yet-again-with-anonymous-russia-leaks/

Wow, The Federalist must only write for people who do not know history.


The information from "curveball" was DISMISSED by U.S. intelligence as unreliable.  The Bi-partisan 9-11 Commission reported that Bush and Cheney were the only ones who wanted to rely on "curveball's" reports so they created the Office of Special Plans under Donald Fieth in the Dept of Defense just in order to claim the report was crdible.  It was classic "stovepiping".  Blaming the mdia for that catastrophe is a joke.  It was 100% on Bush and Cheney for giving Curveball's report credibility.  The media was just reporting on the info provided by the President's Department of Defense.

And the "Russian Collusion hoax" of 2016 was not created by the media.  It was created by the Trump campaign commitee having secret meetings with Russians offering information on Hillarey Clinton and the LYING THEIR ASSES OFF ABOUT THESE MEETINGS.  

Seriously, who in thier right mind would say we should NOT investigate a presidential candidate having secret meetings with russians spis and then lying about it?

Basically the position of The Federalist is "Bush lied and got us into a terrible war, but now when we know a President is lying we should not even investigate him."

[*bfine32*]

(06-30-2020, 10:29 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I have already admitted that it was a few days before the Obama administration said it was clearly an act of terrorism instead of a riot over a videotape.  So I don't know what your point is.

The GIANT SCANDAL was over in days and the Obama administration neither gained or lost anything over the way the information was presented.  the fact that Republicans still obsess over a "scandal" that resulted in nothing shows how desperate they are to find something to complain about.

Seriously, what was the damage from that scandal?  What did the Obama administration gain from the "cover up"?

it has been investigated SEVEN TIMES by REPUBLICANS in congress and they found no damaging misconduct.  Time to let it go.

You tell them Hills:

[fredtoast]

(06-30-2020, 10:49 AM)bfine32 Wrote: You tell them Hills:

Exactly.  The right keeps trying to use this against Hillary when people who understand the context and know the truth understand exactly what she is saying.

It does not matter because she did nothing wrong, but Republicans would not let it go and investigated the issue SEVEN TIMES.  All they cared about was political theater instead of any sort of lustice.  And political theater DOES NOT MATTER.

But for the uneducated the right still uses this clip out of context to make it sound like Hillary does not care that US citizens dies in the attack.  Some people would rather hear 10 seconds of what they want to be true instead of listening to the entire hearing and learn the real truth.  They live on sound bites instead of true knowledge.

[GMDino]

Trump's defense is sharing a Geraldo tweet that misrepresents (lies about?) what was inthe NY Time article.

Geraldo's tweet falsely says the Times "admitted" the "underlying intelligence was conflicting."

In reality, that line from the Times story was describing what Republicans said after emerging from their White House briefing.
https://t.co/I62WbjXZOS https://t.co/3aohF11CKH

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 30, 2020

 

[Dill]

(06-30-2020, 12:16 PM)GMDino Wrote: ". . . admitting the underlying intelligence was conflicting. . . All NYT/Russia reporting has been based on 'conflicting' intelligence--also known as wishful thinking."

Important to note: From inside the intel community, one could say that almost 100% of intel findings can be represented as "conflicting" with some sources and other intel assessments.

Also important--"conflicts" are not necessarily, or even not often, between equally credible sources/assessments. Those who receive and process raw intel to create the products upon which policy recommendations are based must constantly make judgement calls about the relative "confidence level" of intel products. This can be accurately represented as a "science." Sometimes the calls are tough and risky; other times they are not because the "conflicting" source is simply not credible, or very much less so. (E.g., Putin denies the bounty story. Should that "conflicting source" trump US intel reports?)

In this case, there is no reason to suppose "conflicting intelligence" disqualifies a NYT report when the veracity of the bounty report was accepted across the intel community, drawing from multiple sources and vetting/synthesizing through multiple stages. That's one reason why other news sources can confirm it.

When a commentator pulls out that word "conflicting" to leverage doubt about the "fake news" report, he is hoping that voter's lack of knowledge about the process will lead them to suppose the NYT report was one-sided and "jumped the gun" out of eagerness to say something bad about Trump. Another "unnamed source" scandal, no more credible to the Fox audience than yet another woman accusing Trump of rape.  He said/she said.

At the propaganda level, it will be worth noting if this report can, for Trump's base, be successfully converted to another "lie" about Trump, as were the impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction.

[Dill]

(06-30-2020, 10:49 AM)bfine32 Wrote: You tell them Hills:

Typical Hillary--trying to put national security above political theater.

Don't expect this cold woman to apologize to the families of the Benghazi victims.

Some of you may be wondering how super-businessman Trump would manage a 9-hour public grilling from the opposing party.

We'll never know, as his lawyers have at every possible opportunity deemed the risk of "entrapment" too high.

[Dill]

More "conflicting intel."

Data on Financial Transfers Bolstered Suspicions That Russia Offered Bounties
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/russian-bounties-afghanistan-intelligence.html

American officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, which was among the evidence that supported their conclusion that Russia covertly offered bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.

Though the United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before, analysts concluded from other intelligence that the transfers were most likely part of a bounty program that detainees described during interrogations. Investigators also identified by name numerous Afghans in a network linked to the suspected Russian operation, the officials said — including, two of them added, a man believed to have served as an intermediary for distributing some of the funds and who is now thought to be in Russia.

This gives a glimpse into the process of intel synthesis and accumulating corroboration:

The intercepts bolstered the findings gleaned from the interrogations, helping reduce an earlier disagreement among intelligence analysts and agencies over the reliability of the detainees. The disclosures further undercut White House officials’ claim that the intelligence was too uncertain to brief President Trump. In fact, the information was provided to him in his daily written brief in late February, two officials have said.

The bolded suggests how "conflicting intel" noise was reduced in the vetting/synthesis process.

[Dill]

(06-30-2020, 03:39 PM)Dill Wrote: More "conflicting intel."
Data on Financial Transfers Bolstered Suspicions That Russia Offered Bounties
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/russian-bounties-afghanistan-intelligence.html

So how is this revelation playing out in domestic politics?

On Monday, the administration invited several House Republicans to the White House to discuss the intelligence. The briefing was mostly carried out by three Trump administration officials: Mr. Ratcliffe, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Mr. O’Brien. Until recently, both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Ratcliffe were Republican congressmen known for being outspoken supporters of Mr. Trump.

That briefing focused on intelligence information that supported the conclusion that Russia was running a covert bounty operation and other information that did not support it, according to two people familiar with the meeting. For example, the briefing focused in part on the interrogated detainees’ accounts and the earlier analysts’ disagreement over it.

Both people said the intent of the briefing seemed to be to make the point that the intelligence on the suspected Russian bounty plot was not clear cut. For example, one of the people said, the White House also cited some interrogations by Afghan intelligence officials of other detainees, downplaying their credibility by describing them as low-level.

The administration officials did not mention anything in the House Republican briefing about intercepted data tracking financial transfers, both of the people familiar with it said.

Democrats and Senate Republicans were also separately briefed at the White House on Tuesday morning. Democrats emerged saying that the issue was clearly not, as Mr. Trump has suggested, a “hoax.” They demanded to hear directly from intelligence officials, rather than from Mr. Trump’s political appointees, but conceded they had not secured a commitment for such a briefing.

Based on the intelligence they saw, the lawmakers said they were deeply troubled by Mr. Trump’s insistence he did not know about the plot and his subsequent obfuscation when it became public.

[Dill]

In claiming that the information was not provided to him, Mr. Trump has also dismissed the intelligence assessment as “so-called” and claimed he was told that it was “not credible.” The White House subsequently issued statements in the names of several subordinates denying that he had been briefed.

The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, reiterated that claim on Monday and said that the information had not been elevated to Mr. Trump because there was a dissenting view about it within the intelligence community.

But she and other administration officials demurred when pressed to say whether their denials encompassed the president’s daily written briefing, a compendium of the most significant intelligence and analysis that the intelligence community writes for presidents to read. Mr. Trump is known to often neglect reading his written briefings.

And yet . . .

Intelligence about the suspected Russian plot was included in Mr. Trump’s written President’s Daily Brief in late February, according to two officials, contrasting Mr. Trump’s claim on Sunday that he was never “briefed or told” about the matter.

Trump Got Written Briefing in February on Possible Russian Bounties, Officials Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/us/politics/russian-bounty-trump.html

The moment the president received the briefing, he was involved in the decision-making chain about what to do with that intel--he was the top of the chain in fact.

If he "forgot" or if he personally decided the intel was "not credible" so he would not have to act on it, that is gross dereliction of duty. To repeat--unlikely Trump was "told" the intel was not credible. More likely that he "decided" it was, if someone mentioned a "conflict" among those assessing prisoner testimony at one stage of the process. That was a quick out.

Public action action and a private word to Putin back in Feb. could have forced the Russians to decide the program was too costly in political and economic terms, and forced them to withdraw it.  So far as I can tell, it continues to the present. Were any Americans killed by such targeted bombs in March, April,, May and June?

[*michaelsean*]

I’m just going to jump to the end here with some deep political analysis.Russia sucks. They will always suck anyone who trusts them is a moron.

[*bfine32*]

(06-30-2020, 10:58 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Exactly.  The right keeps trying to use this against Hillary when people who understand the context and know the truth understand exactly what she is saying.

It does not matter because she did nothing wrong, but Republicans would not let it go and investigated the issue SEVEN TIMES.  All they cared about was political theater instead of any sort of lustice.  And political theater DOES NOT MATTER.

But for the uneducated the right still uses this clip out of context to make it sound like Hillary does not care that US citizens dies in the attack.  Some people would rather hear 10 seconds of what they want to be true instead of listening to the entire hearing and learn the real truth.  They live on sound bites instead of true knowledge.

I hate when a political party won't let something go.