Trump says Russian Taliban bounty for attacks on US soldiers a ‘hoax’

Doanld Trump denounced as “a hoax” reports that Russia paid bounties for attacks on American soldiers.

Mike Pompeo questioned the accuracy of media coverage of the bounty program, declining to comment on the intelligence. Picture: AFP

US President Donald Trump denounced as “a hoax” reports that Russia paid bounties for attacks on American soldiers, while administration officials said he may yet pursue talks with Moscow through international organisations such as the Group of Seven leading nations.

Congressional Republicans as well as Democrats continued calling for briefings on US intelligence indicating that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, was paying Taliban insurgents to attack US service members in Afghanistan. The CIA is due to brief the House of Representatives members on Friday AEST.

Republican senator Chuck Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor that if reports about the intelligence were true, it represented “a serious escalation”.

“It demands a strong response, and I don’t mean a diplomatic response,” he said. “Putin is a KGB guy who only understands strength.”

Mr Trump told Fox Business the intelligence was never presented to him because it “didn’t rise to that level”.

“I think it’s a hoax,” he said. “I think it’s a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats.”

At the same time, he acknowledged the information was contained in intelligence reports, although he said: “Many of the intelligence people didn’t think it was something that even happened.”

A US intelligence assessment about the alleged scheme was included earlier this year as part of information presented to Mr Trump in his daily intelligence briefing materials.

The White House has said that Mr Trump was never briefed in person on the intelligence and that the intelligence presented was unverified.

The National Security Agency, which specialises in electronic eavesdropping, dissented from other intelligence agencies, sources said. The differences weren’t over the central assessment that operatives with the GRU paid bounties to the insurgent Taliban movement to kill Americans, some of the sources said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo questioned the accuracy of media coverage of the bounty program, declining to comment on the intelligence while saying it had been handled appropriately by the administration.

“The fact that the Russians are engaged in Afghanistan, in a way that’s adverse to the United States, is nothing new,” he said, adding that he regularly raised the issue of Afghanistan with Russian officials.

US officials have said previously that Russia has backed the Taliban, including through small-arms shipments.

Mr Pompeo said Mr Trump “has been consistently aware of the challenges that Russia presents to us, and he is aware of the risk in Afghanistan”.

Mr Trump said in May that as the host of this year’s summit of G7 leaders he wanted to invite Russia and other nations to take part in the meeting, which has been delayed. Several allied leaders opposed the plan to invite Russia in light of its 2014 invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Pompeo said the administration needed to speak to the Russians and that Mr Trump would make his own determination about Russia’s possible participation in the coming G-7 summit in the US.

“The President gets to decide if he wants them to come to summits or not, ” he said. “That’s his decision. I’ll certainly leave that to him. But I do believe it is absolutely important that we have more frequent engagement with the Russians.”

Mr Trump’s denunciation of the intelligence came hours after he tweeted a similar thought, calling news reports an effort to “slander me & the Republican Party”.

His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, decried revelations of the intelligence information in comments outside the White House.

“It’s some kind of a felon in the federal government, some kind of a deep state criminal, because he committed a very serious crime,” Mr Giuliani said.

“I don’t care what it reveals, and what it revealed is something that’s in dispute.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL