Donald Trump denies briefing on Taliban bounties against US troops

Donald Trump denies being briefed that Russian military intelligence offered bounties to the Taliban to kill Americans.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence at the return to US soil of two US soldiers killed in Afghanistan in February. Picture: AFP

US President Donald Trump on Sunday (Monday AEST) denied that he had been briefed on ­reported US intelligence that Russian spies offered bounties to Taliban militants for killing American and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

American intelligence officials concluded months ago that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, last year offered rewards for successful attacks on NATO troops last year, at a time when the US and Taliban were holding talks to end the 18-year-old war, The New York Times first reported.

A senior administration official said the White House planned to brief select members of Congress on Monday on the subject.

Mr Trump, in a Sunday tweet, said that “nobody briefed or told me” or Vice-President Mike Pence or chief of staff Mark Meadows about “the so-called attacks on our troops in ­Afghanistan by Russians”. “Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us,” he said.

The White House had issued a statement on Saturday denying that Mr Trump or Mr Pence had been briefed on such intelligence. “This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe also said neither Mr Trump nor Mr Pence was “ever briefed on any intelligence alleged” in the NYT’s report and he said the White House statement was “accurate”.

Mr Trump’s tweet came a day after presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden said that the report, if accurate, was a “truly shocking revelation” about the President and his failure to protect US troops in Afghanistan and stand up to Russia.

Russia called the report “nonsense”. “This unsophisticated plant clearly illustrates the low intellectual abilities of the propagandists of American intelligence, who instead of inventing something more plausible have to make up this nonsense,” the Foreign Ministry said.

A Taliban spokesman said the militants “strongly reject this allegation” and were not “indebted to the beneficence of any intelligence organ or foreign country”.

John Bolton, a former national security adviser who was forced out by Mr Trump last September and has written a tell-all book about his time at the White House, said on Sunday: “It is ­pretty remarkable the President’s going out of his way to say he hasn’t heard anything about it. One asks, why would he do something like that?”

Mr Bolton told NBC that he thought the answer “may be precisely because active Russian aggression like that against the American service members is a very, very serious matter and nothing’s been done about it, if it’s true, for these past four or five months, so it may look like he was negligent. But of course, he can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a member of the “Gang of Eight” congressional leaders briefed on sensitive intelligence matters, told ABC that she had not been informed about the reported bounties and requested a report to congress on the matter.

“This is as bad as it gets, and yet the President will not confront the Russians on this score, denies being briefed. Whether he is or not, his administration knows and our allies — some of our allies who work with us in Afghanistan — had been briefed and accept this report,” she said.

The NYT, citing unnamed officials, said the findings were presented to Mr Trump and discussed by his National Security Council in late March. Officials developed potential responses, starting with a diplomatic complaint to Russia, but the White House had yet to authorise any step, the report said.

Mr Trump responded to Mr Biden on Twitter, saying: “Russia ate his and Obama’s lunch during their time in office.” But it was the Obama administration, along with allies, that suspended Russia from the Group of Eight after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Mr Biden criticised Mr Trump for “his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself” before Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump tweeted that “nobody’s been tougher” on Russia than his administration.

AP