{"id":65717,"date":"2020-07-01T23:40:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T23:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/07\/01\/trump-top-officials-defend-response-to-russia-bounty-threat\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T12:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T12:18:28","slug":"trump-top-officials-defend-response-to-russia-bounty-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/2020\/07\/01\/trump-top-officials-defend-response-to-russia-bounty-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, top officials defend response to Russia bounty threat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 Criticized for inaction, President Donald Trump and top officials on Wednesday stepped up their defense of the administration\u2019s response to intelligence assessments that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Trump\u2019s national security adviser said he had prepared a list of retaliatory options if the intelligence proved true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump, meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2020\/07\/01\/trump-calls-reports-of-russian-bounties-on-us-troops-a-hoax\/\" target=_blank>called the assessments a \u201choax\u201d<\/a> and insisted anew <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2020\/06\/28\/trump-denies-briefing-on-reported-bounties-against-american-troops-in-afghanistan\/\" target=_blank>he hadn\u2019t been briefed on them <\/a>because the intelligence didn\u2019t rise to his level. However, National Security Adviser Robert O\u2019Brien said both the CIA and Pentagon did pursue the leads and briefed international allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe had options ready to go,\u201d O\u2019Brien said on \u201cFox and Friends.\u201d \u201cIt may be impossible to get to the bottom of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At a State Department news conference, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2020\/06\/30\/pompeo-calls-taliban-leader-amid-scandal-regarding-russian-bounty-on-coalition-troops-in-afghanistan\/\" target=_blank>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo<\/a> said the situation was handled \u201cincredibly well\u201d to ensure the safety of U.S. troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe took this seriously, we handled it appropriately,\u201d Pompeo said, without giving additional details. He said the administration receives intelligence about threats to Americans \u201cevery single day\u201d and each is addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pompeo added that Russian activity in Afghanistan is nothing new and that Russia is just one of many nations acting there. He said that Congress has had similar information in the past, and that he often receives threat assessments that don\u2019t rise to the level of a presidential briefing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump is coming under increasing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2020\/06\/30\/trump-should-have-acted-on-reports-of-russian-bounties-on-us-troops-lawmakers-say\/\" target=_blank>pressure from lawmakers of both parties<\/a> to provide more answers about the intelligence and the U.S. response or lack of one. Democrats who were briefed at the White House on Tuesday suggested he was bowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the risk of U.S. troops\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The president has repeatedly said he wasn\u2019t briefed on the assessments that Russia offered bounties because there wasn\u2019t corroborating evidence. Those assessments were first reported by The New York Times, then confirmed to The Associated Press by American intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2020\/06\/30\/white-house-aware-in-2019-of-russian-bounties-on-american-troops-in-afghanistan-officials-say\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5910606.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">White House aware in 2019 of Russian bounties on American troops in Afghanistan, officials say<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany pointed to an individual who she said made the decision not to brief Trump, identifying the person as a female CIA officer with more than 30 years of experience. O\u2019Brien said the person was a \u201ccareer CIA briefer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe national security adviser agreed with that decision,\u201d McEnany said. \u201cIt was the right decision to make, and at this moment as I speak to you it is still unverified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump remained defensive about the intelligence in early morning tweets, dismissing stories about it as \u201cFake News\u201d made up to \u201cdamage me and the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later in the day, Trump said in a television interview that It was a hoax and &#8220;we never heard about it&#8221; because intelligence officials didn&#8217;t think it rose to that level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe intelligence people, many of them didn\u2019t believe it happened at all,\u201d Trump said on Fox Business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">O\u2019Brien said the intelligence wasn\u2019t brought to Trump\u2019s attention initially because it was unverified and there was no consensus among the intelligence community. But it\u2019s rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of doubt before it is presented to senior government decision-makers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The national security adviser echoed the recent White House talking point faulting not Russia but government leakers and the media for making the matter public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20183765658617.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks during a press briefing at the White House on July 1, 2020, in Washington.\" class=\"wp-image-101336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20183765658617.jpg.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20183765658617.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20183765658617.jpg.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20183765658617.jpg.jpg?resize=1024,682 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20183765658617.jpg.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks during a press briefing at the White House on July 1, 2020, in Washington. (Evan Vucci\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Senate Republicans appeared split on the matter, with several defending the president and saying that the Russian meddling wasn\u2019t new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Others expressed strong concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania called for administration officials to address the entire Senate and answer questions. He said he had reviewed classified documents regarding the potential bounties \u201cupon which recent news reports are based\u201d and said the information raises many questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf it is concluded that Russia offered bounties to murder American soldiers, a firm American response is required in short order,\u201d Toomey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley had similar words on the Senate floor, saying that if the reports are true, \u201cit demands a strong response, and I don\u2019t mean a diplomatic response.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">House Democrats who were briefed at the White House on Tuesday questioned why Trump wouldn\u2019t have been briefed sooner and pushed White House officials to have the president make a strong statement. They said the administration should brief all members of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, one of the Democrats who attended the briefing, said it was \u201cinexplicable\u201d why Trump won\u2019t say publicly that he is working to get to the bottom of the issue and why he won\u2019t call out Putin. He said Trump\u2019s defense that he hadn\u2019t been briefed was inexcusable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMany of us do not understand his affinity for that autocratic ruler who means our nation ill,\u201d Schiff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Senate Republicans who received their own briefing largely defended the president, arguing along with the White House that the intelligence was unverified. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Trump \u201ccan\u2019t be made aware of every piece of unverified intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similarly, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he didn\u2019t think Trump should be \u201csubjected to every rumor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intelligence officials, including CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, will brief the so-called Gang of 8 \u2014 McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the top Republicans and Democrats on the two intelligence committees \u2014 in a classified meeting on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Russian meddling in Afghanistan isn\u2019t new, officials said Russian operatives had become more aggressive in their desire to contract with the Taliban and members of the Haqqani Network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The intelligence community has been investigating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/2019\/04\/10\/dod-identifies-three-marines-killed-in-bagram-blast\/\" target=_blank>an April 2019 attack on an American convoy that killed three U.S. Marines <\/a>when a car rigged with explosives detonated near their armored vehicles as they traveled back to Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, officials told the AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/recruiting\/2020\/07\/01\/mother-of-marine-killed-in-afghanistan-demands-answers-amid-russian-bounty-allegations\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"129\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP19100633031792.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Mother of Marine killed in Afghanistan demands answers amid Russian bounty allegations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The mother of one of three killed Marines killed in Afghanistan in April 2019 is calling for a \u201cthorough investigation\u201d and for those responsible to be held accountable.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three other U.S. service members were wounded in the attack, along with an Afghan contractor. The Taliban claimed responsibility. The officials the AP spoke to also said they were looking closely at insider attacks from 2019 to determine if they were linked to Russian bounties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intelligence officials told the AP that the White House first became aware of alleged Russian bounties in early 2019 \u2014 a year earlier than had been previously reported. The assessments were included in one of Trump\u2019s written daily briefings at the time, and then-National Security Adviser John Bolton had told colleagues he had briefed Trump on the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Lisa Mascaro, Alan Fram, Matthew Daly and Deb Riechmann in Washington and Jonathan Lemire in Mystic, Connecticut, contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Feg9MTlC2NA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen title=\"See Russian fighters get very close to U.S. recon plane\"><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Criticized for inaction, President Donald Trump and top officials on Wednesday stepped up their defense of the administration\u2019s response to intelligence assessments that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":101334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,23,89,12,26,62],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1207,472,3240],"class_list":["post-65717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"2RLWAH2J2NDBBLUBWA5CEE4TYU","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2020\/07\/01\/trump-top-officials-defend-response-to-russia-bounty-threat\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Trump, top officials defend response to Russia bounty threat - Navy Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Criticized for inaction, President Donald Trump and top officials on Wednesday stepped up their defense of the administration\u2019s response to intelligence assessments that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump, top officials defend response to Russia bounty threat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Criticized for inaction, President Donald Trump and top officials on Wednesday 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