NYT: Russians paid Afghans to kill American troops

[Dill]

(07-01-2020, 07:26 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It still won't be much. He has disrespected the military from his 2016 campaign on. His voters won't care.

Some of them will. And more independents. And more and more military. (Hope Bfine weighs in at some point.)

Once again Trump believes Putin over his own intel, as in Finland, but this time his denials are accompanied by segments of CNN and MSNBC interviewing the mothers of recently slain US soldiers. More stories to come about whether any and if so which deaths are connected to the program.

His claim that the bounty story is another "fake news" hoax commits him to doing nothing about it.  

Fully Briefed' Trump Calls Russia Bounty Report 'Fake News Media Hoax'
https://www.voanews.com/usa/fully-briefed-trump-calls-russia-bounty-report-fake-news-media-hoax

In a series of early morning tweets Wednesday, the president called media reports about the intelligence “just another HOAX!” and said the source for the original report in The New York Times “probably does not even exist.”

Trump also cited a statement from the Pentagon that military officials have "no corroborating evidence." 

"Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party" the president wrote on Twitter. "I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level."

As we learn that NATO nations were briefed on this threat to their soldiers, and the NSC went forward preparing options for response, the "did-not-rise-to-that-level" claim will be denounced as patently false.

Even most Republican Senators recognize that US HAS to respond somehow to this now widespread report. If Trump doesn't assume the burden/direction of national defense here, I'm pretty sure Congress will be drafting legislation that meets this need. Trump will look even less incontrol and more competent has tries to manage this failure to protect during a pandemic--another failure to protect.

Not a minor scandal. And pro-Military Republican Senators know that.