After a meeting at the White House to discuss intelligence relating to how Russian military operatives were allegedly paying bounties to Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan last year, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer expressed disagreement with President Donald Trump, who had called reports on the matter a “hoax” in a tweet over the weekend.
“Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP,” Trump said on Sunday. “Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News @nytimesbooks, wanting to make Republicans look bad!!!”
According to reporting from The New York Times last week, Trump was supposedly briefed on the bounties on American soldiers made by Russian agents to Taliban militants months ago, with an update to their reporting stating that the president received the information in one of the President’s Daily Brief documents given to him in late February.
Separate reporting from The Associated Press, however, said that the White House was aware of the bounties as far back as last year, and that then-National Security Adviser John Bolton had briefed the president on them.
It’s unclear which narrative is the more accurate version of events at this time.
The briefing that House leaders received on Tuesday made it clear, however, in Hoyer’s mind at least, that the situation was not something to take lightly, and that the White House was in possession of credible intelligence corroborating the Times’s and other news agencies’ reporting.
“The president called this a hoax publicly. Nothing in the briefing that we have just received led me to believe it is a hoax,” Hoyer said at a press conference. “There may be different judgments as to the level of credibility, but there was no assertion that the information we had was a hoax.”
Hoyer also criticized the fact that the briefing at the White House did not include perspectives from intelligence agency officials. Absent from the meeting, Hoyer noted, was CIA Director Gina Haspel.
Without the input of intelligence officers, the briefing was less insightful, more demonstrative of the White House’s views.
“I thought this briefing was the White House personnel telling us their perspective. I think we knew the White House perspective,” Hoyer added. “What we need to know is the intelligence perspective.”
Hoyer further called the information he was briefed on a “red flag” — one that was either “not waved” to begin with, or that the president ignored when he first saw it.
Joining Hoyer at the press conference on Tuesday was House Intelligence chair Rep. Adam Schiff, who was also among those briefed at the White House about the intelligence regarding the Russian bounties. Schiff suggested in his statement that the fact that Russia was involved may have led to aides not briefing the president on the matter.
“I shared the concern at the White House today that I think many of us have, which is, there may be a reluctance to brief the president on things he doesn’t want to hear, and that may be more true with respect to Putin and Putin’s Russia than with respect to any other subject matter,” Schiff said.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.