Posted on 06/29/2020 7:43:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton criticized on Sunday President Trump’s response to reports that Russian military operatives offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill U.S. troops – saying Trump’s decision-making is “not connected to reality” and bashing the president for denying that he was aware of the bounties.
The comments by Bolton, whose upcoming memoir about his time in the Trump White House has drawn the ire of the president, come as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling on action to be taken against Moscow following reports in the New York Times that a Russian spy unit paid the Taliban to attack U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan.
Trump sent out a tweet early Sunday morning denying that he had ever been briefed about the Russian bounties and questioning the veracity of the New York Times’ reporting.
“This is the problem with the president's decision-making,” Bolton said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It's not connected to reality, it’s connected to his personal position.”
Bolton added that if Trump had actually not been informed about the alleged bounties on U.S. troops, then he should have had the director of national intelligence report to him on the matter. Former Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, was recently confirmed as Trump’s new DNI and said over the weekend that he never briefed the president on the issue.
“If the president hadn't heard, presumably, he should have called up the DNI, and asked,” Bolton said. “That in and of itself is disturbing.”
The New York Times first reported that American intelligence officials have determined a Russian military unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces, including targeting American troops. The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post also reported on the Kremlin's effort to orchestrate attacks on Western troops.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Bolton is merely sour grapes.
He was fired and can’t stand it.
Bolton doesn’t count
Liz Chaney is the #3 Republican in the House. She is literally parroting the NY Times on this nonsense and undermining POTUS.
Bolton on CNN....Was Brennan doing the interview?
I smell Romney here, he’s making his move.
Pretty sure I’m in the minority, here, but here’s my take: The US Army has been in Afghanistan for over 18 years. What good have we done since initially overthrowing the Taliban? And now they are back?? Why are we still there? What a long and terrible and pointless occupation. Frankly, I think our global competitors have every reason to pay people to target US soldiers. The US has armed and paid insurgents all over the world in every place imaginable for 60-plus years. And we still are. Even if true, this is not something that is cause for a confrontation with the Russians.
Trump’s instincts are to bring the troops home and I hope he pulls through and does it. This is just one more reason.
I swear these dem’s have turned in to foaming at the mouth sabre-rattling pro-war idiots, free speech haters, and pro-CIA and FBI spying on Americans. What a sad and weird turnaround from the mostly honest and predictable dem’s of the 60’s and 70’s. These people now are lunatics.
note to all freepers: this was never anything but bullshit manufactured out of whole cloth by the anti-trump NYT ... trump has already stated that he wasn’t briefed until after the article and that the reason he wasn’t briefed earlier was because intel looked into it and found it was all bullshit and wasn’t worth briefing the president about ...
So the attention whore with no actual knowledge of the situation is pontificating and.................attention whoring.
This is how it’s going to be until the election. Ankle biters on the right like Cheney and Romney parroting as much as they can of leftist attacks in an attempt to suppress Trump voter turnout. Cheney should be removed from leadership for her tweet undermining a GOP POTUS under coupist assault. That won’t be happening, of course.
Has Bolton promised Quid Pro Joementia Biden that he would go through with the Transition Surgery if chosen as his V.P.?
Bolton is probably the leaker and still has intelligence clearance. I expect more intel leaks to happen from now until election.
That's not what Bolton said, nor is it a fair inference. You are deliberately misrepresenting the timeline, and what Trump said. Shame on you for lying to people here just to advance a particular agenda. Your argument must not be very good if that's the kind of crap you have to pull.
The NYT article -- which only appeared on Friday -- claimed that Trump already had been briefed on the alleged bounties, and had known about this "for months".
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html
Trump tweeted and said that the claim he had been briefed "as reported by the New York Times" was false.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1277202159109537793
At no point did Trump say that he hadn't been briefed by anyone after the appearance of NYT article, so both Bolton's claim and your cheap shot are nothing more than an unjustified smear.
How does Bolton know he was briefed?
If Joe Biden was President, bin Laden would still be alive.
And once again: shut up you dog-faced pony soldier.
Bolton is a known liar and a traitor to our country for leaking classified information and working with foreign agents against the United States.
Bolton should have been executed years ago.
As usual, Bolton is lying to go on tv and get paid for lying about our president.
NYT Finds Themselves in a Blunder Over Their Botched Russia-Taliban Story
Townhall.com ^ | 6/28/2020 | beth baumann
Posted on 6/28/2020, 6:21:56 PM by bitt
Members of the American intelligence community have concluded that members of the Russian intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants if they successfully killed members of the American military, the New York Times reported.
The problem, however, is that almost everyone involved in this story says it isn’t true. The White House, Russia and even the Taliban have said the Times’ story is false.
According to the anonymous source that spoke to the Times, the Russians intending “to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.”
The source claimed that President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were briefed on the situation and the National Security Council discussed it back in March.
Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the country had no diplomatic complaints on record.
“If someone makes them, we’ll respond,” Peskov told the Times.
In the Times’ piece, the Taliban’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the terrorist organization had no “such relations with any intelligence agency.” He labeled the accusation as an attempt to “defame” the group.
“These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” Mujahid explained. “That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don’t attack them.”
The most telling part of the article included absolutely zero details:
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3860127/posts
Bolton is deeply troubled.
Bolton may screw around too much with the Taliban and Russians, and they may handle their problem with him.
Most of our enemies have done this over the years.
The North Vietnamese put a bounty on our SpecOps members.
A friend of my wife and I, served 3 tours in Nam as a Marine sniper.
The VietCong, Russians and Chicoms had a bounty on him.
He enjoys retirement and being a grandfather.
Didn’t we offer a bounty on individuals identified by a deck of cards?
Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org › wiki › Most-wanted_Iraqi_playing_cards:
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency developed a set of playing cards to help troops identify the most-wanted members of President ... during their games will help soldiers and Marines in case they run into the wanted individuals in the field, Brooks said.
Huh? that makes no sense whatsoever.
You mean he shouldn’t have called up the DNI about asking for information he’d never heard of regarding something he didn’t know about or whether any BFE PFM situation was not happening?
/s
Where is Sam Kenison when you need him?
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