WASHINGTON – The Trump administration told Republican members of Congress on Monday that intelligence on possible Russian rewards may have been included at some point in the President’s Daily Report, but not relayed to President Donald Trump in a formal briefing on threats because it was not “actionable” yet, “said the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“I think it may have been” in the written writing of the President Daily Journal, or PDB, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in an interview.
Referring to the President, McCaul said: “I think the way the process works is that he is informed approximately three times a week about some kind of actionable and credible items. And the decision was made that this was not credible in that moment”. , actionable intelligence piece. And if at some point it did, it would attract attention. “
McCaul was one of eight House Republicans reported Monday in the White House Situation Room by the White House chief of staff, the national security adviser and the director of national intelligence. A group of eight House Democrats would receive a similar briefing on Tuesday morning.
The White House has insisted that Trump never received an “intelligence briefing” indicating that Russia offered rewards to Afghan militants for killing US and coalition troops. But both the White House and the director of national intelligence’s office have declined to say whether the information was in the PDB, the highly classified document produced for the president and other top officials, sparking speculation that Trump simply had not read their informational materials.
McCaul, who said he left the briefing with deep concerns that intelligence might be correct, said lawmakers were told that no US service member had died as a result of Russia paying Afghan militants to kill them.
“His answer was no,” said McCaul. “The intelligence had come out in January. It was just at the time of the peace talks” in which the United States was negotiating with the Taliban for a temporary reduction in violence as a precursor to a broader political agreement.
The comments add to the growing confusion over whether a Russian reward offer was ever made and when the US found out. An official familiar with intelligence said he showed that US troops and Afghan civilians died as a result, although other officials have indicated that has not been substantiated. The Associated Press reported Monday night that the White House learned of the intelligence in early 2019, a year earlier than other reports have indicated.
Since the media allegations emerged, Trump has claimed that the intelligence community did not think he was credible. But in another indication that the national security community apparently took intelligence seriously, McCaul said Trump administration officials revealed that changes had been made to protocols to protect U.S. service members operating in the region, known as “force protection” in response.
“They emphasized the fact that they did everything possible to protect our forces there,” McCaul said. “And the record, according to them, the fact that no one had been killed, you know, I think that speaks to that.”
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Still, McCaul and other Republicans walked out of the hearing calling for swift action to respond if intelligence is substantiated. McCaul said that if the allegations are true, the United States should impose strong sanctions on the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit implicated by intelligence.
McCaul also said that any discussion about allowing Russia to return to the Group of 7 nations “should be off the table.” Trump has repeatedly advocated allowing President Vladimir Putin to return to the club of nations, from which he was ousted in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
House Republicans were told that the National Security Council was investigating intelligence after various intelligence agencies disagreed on its veracity, McCaul said, with an intelligence agency, which he did not identify, after having filed a “dissenting opinion”.
However, it has been several months since intelligence arrived, and McCaul acknowledged that it was unclear whether the NSC had actively validated or sought further information before the allegations were made public in a New York Times article, prompting a massive public pressure to get answers.
“That’s a very good question. What they told me was that they had been investigating through the NSC,” McCaul said. She added that CIA Director Gina Haspel and John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, were embarking on an “analysis of all intelligence data to verify veracity and credibility.”
Ken Dilanian, Carol E. Lee, Courtney Kube and Kristen Welker contributed
