posted July 01, 2020 11:25 PM            

What officials?

Officials 'SAY'...meaning intelligence officials and Pentagon officials 'SAY' the New York Times story is unverified bullshiite.

posted July 02, 2020 01:15 AM            

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters:

“There is no consensus within the intelligence community on these allegations, and, in effect, there are dissenting opinions from some in the intelligence community with regards to the veracity of what’s being reported. And the veracity of the underlying allegations continue to be evaluated,” McEnany said. “Intelligence is verified before it reaches the President of the United States. And in this case, it was not verified.”

Former Acting DNI, Richard Grenell, responded to Rep. Ted Lieu on this NYT story:

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...it’s disgusting how you continue to politicize intelligence. You clearly don’t understand how raw intel gets verified. Leaks of partial information to reporters from anonymous sources is dangerous because people like you manipulate it for political gain.

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posted July 02, 2020 10:57 PM            

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The Federalist reported Thursday that "multiple intelligence sources" told the publication that some members of Schiff's staff "were briefed in February on intelligence about Russia offering the Taliban bounties in Afghanistan," but that Schiff "took no action in response to the briefing."

The Federalist notes that, as chairman of the Intelligence committee, Schiff "had the authority to immediately brief the full committee and convene hearings on the matter" when he allegedly learned of them in February, yet he apparently did nothing.

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So why didn't he act on the intel back in February? Instead, Schiff sat on it. Now, four months later, someone - likely Schiff - leaks this classified information to the NYT.

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Patrick Boland, a spokesman for Schiff on the Intelligence Committee, did not respond to a request for comment from The Federalist about Schiff’s inaction on the bounty allegations and declined to say why Schiff withheld the information from Congress for months.

The Federalist also reported that Boland also did not explain why travel records regarding the congressional staff delegation trip to Afghanistan had not yet been disclosed in the Congressional Record as required by law.

It is not the first time Schiff withheld information from other members of Congress that he would later use to criticize the Trump administration for.

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posted July 09, 2020 02:50 AM            

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The Russian bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan story which originated in The New York Times has already been memory holed with warp speed.

This also after an intelligence memo emerged late last week also casting more doubts on the whole story. It was also revealed that the NSA had from the beginning strongly dissented from what was considered scant firm intelligence; the Pentagon also said it had no evidence that US troops were ever targeted based on Russia's GRU paying Taliban militants bounties.

And now no less than the CENTCOM chief has weighed in to say that it's bogus. Commander of US Central Command, Marine Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, emphasized to reporters on Tuesday his extreme doubts: "I found it very worrisome, I just didn't find that there was a causative link there," he said of the NY Times' reporting.

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https://www.zerohedge.com/political/very-worrisome-centcom-chief-latest-deflate-nyt-russian-bounties-reporting

posted July 09, 2020 12:12 PM            

It used to be a very respected paper.

I mourn the loss of journalistic integrity.

posted September 16, 2020 01:24 AM            

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2 months after top Pentagon officials vowed to get to the bottom of whether the Russian gov't bribed Taliban to kill US service members, the commander in the region says a review of the intel has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program

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posted September 16, 2020 01:26 AM            

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When the pro-war Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee in July joined with Liz Cheney and her warmonger-GOP faction to block WH troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, they constantly cited the Russia bounty story to justify it. So this did its job:

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