Trump's Worst Scandal Yet-- And This Time Republicans DO Care, At Least Many Do

Bullets by Chip Proser

If, as is often said, Texas is the GOP's California, then TX-13 (Amarillo) is the Democrats' CA-12 (San Francisco). One has a PVI of R+33 and the other's is D+37. In 2016, Trump scored a nice solid 79.9% in TX-13-- but just 8.7% in CA-12. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi represents one and Mac Thornberry, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, represents the other. For that reason, it was no small matter, politically, to hear that Mac Thornberry told reporters on a Defense Writers Group conference call in a discussion of Russian bounties that "We need to get to the bottom of it and we need to do it now. Again, this week before Congress leaves on the Fourth of July."

In matters of partisan politics, Thornberry is a lockstep Republican hack. But he is serious about national security, serious about the U.S. military and his Democratic colleagues do not see him as some kind of terminally-impaired fringe nut like Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Gym Jordan (R-OH), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Jim Banks (R-IN) or Devin Nunes (R-CA). Thornberry's comments were reported Tuesday morning by Stars And Stripes in a piece by Caitin Kenney on how bipartisan and bicameral leaders of the Armed Services Committees want answers from the Pentagon and White House about reports that a Russian military intelligence group had paid bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan. Trump is tap-dancing... desperately.

The House Armed Services Committee’s leadership has requested a briefing by the Pentagon for Monday or Tuesday on the intelligence to understand its credibility and how intelligence officials arrived at their conclusion, Thornberry said. The Pentagon had not responded to their request yet, he added.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, also said Monday that the House committee needs answers on the intelligence from the Pentagon and when it was known, in order to hold appropriate administration officials and the Russian government accountable.

“If the reports are true, that the administration knew about this Russian operation and did nothing, they have broken the trust of those who serve and the commitment to their families to ensure their loved one’s safety,” he said in a prepared statement.

A meeting about this intelligence occurred at the White House in March with President Donald Trump, according to news reports. On Sunday, Trump tweeted he and Vice President Mike Pence had not been briefed on the intelligence.

Trump later tweeted, “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or [the vice president.] Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News.”

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday reiterated Trump’s stance that intelligence must be verified before it is brought to him.

“There are dissenting opinions within the intelligence community, and I can confirm with you right now that there is no consensus within the intelligence community on these allegations,” she told reporters during a news briefing.

McEnany also said eight members of Congress were being briefed Monday afternoon at the White House on the intelligence, but she did not say who was in attendance.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) took to Twitter to write he had attended the White House briefing Monday and learned the New York Times “used unconfirmed [intelligence] in an ONGOING investigation into targeted killing of American soldiers.”

“Now it’s impossible to finish the investigation. All [because] the @nytimes will do anything to damage @realdonaldtrump, even if it means compromising [national] security,” he wrote.

Banks is a Navy Reserve officer who served in Afghanistan in 2014 and 2015, according to his official biography. He tweeted the alleged bounties were placed during the time he was serving in the country.

Mitchell Hailstone, Banks’ communications director, confirmed in an email that the other attendees were Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Elise Stefanik of New York, Chris Stewart of Utah, and Thornberry.

Thornberry said earlier Monday that he only knows about the intelligence from news reporting and Trump’s tweet that he was not briefed about the matter is “a very concerning statement.”

“But anything with any hint of credibility that would endanger our service members, much less put a bounty on their lives, to me should have been briefed immediately to the commander in chief and a plan to deal with that situation,” he said.

Thornberry also said he wants to know the timeline on “when we knew what” concerning the intelligence and in regard to the March briefing at the White House reported by news outlets.

“I don’t know how far this goes back, when we knew what. So, it is essential I think that Congress know it. And depending on those answers, it may be appropriate for people who should have briefed the president to be removed if they did not follow their responsibilities,” he said.

Claude Chafin, a House Armed Services Committee spokesman for Thornberry, said the congressman was briefed at the White House, though he still believes the full committee should also be briefed.

Ted Lieu (D-CA) is a senior member of both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Foreign Relations Committee-- and is a full colonel in the U.S. Air Forces Reserves. He has a way with words. Last night he told me that "Trump either knew about the Russian bounty and did nothing, or he didn't know and is criminally derelict in his duties as Commander in Chief. Either way he isn't fit for office." Right to the point-- Lieu can always be counted on the talk straight and not waffle and beat around the bush.

Mike Siegel is running for the central Texas congressional seat occupied by Trump enabler Michael McCaul. McCaul has been covering up for Trump and Siegel is talking with 10th district voters about it. "As usual," he said yesterday, "Michael McCaul is protecting Trump, issuing statements that confuse the issue and try to relieve the COMMANDER IN CHIEF from his responsibility for US troops abroad. There are only two options: Trump is terrified of Putin and took no action, or didn't read or listen to his daily briefings. Treason or incompetence. Could very well be both. Suffice to say, we need to remove Trump and his enablers as soon as humanly possible."

Georgia progressive Democrat Lisa Ring is taking on Trumpist incumbent Buddy Carter, who is helping to cover up Trump's treason. Lisa wrote that "We have a president who has taken no action after learning the Russian government paid bounties to have American servicemembers killed in Afghanistan. And we have a congressman who represents a district with four military bases who says nothing about it. As a mother of a soldier, I am appalled at our political leadership and their failure to stand up to this atrocity. Our first action should be to create an independent commission to fully investigate these deaths in order to move forward swiftly and with international support."

CNN has reported that "numerous former senior intelligence officials are pushing back on the White House denials, saying it was 'absurd,' 'ridiculous,' and 'inconceivable' that the President would not have been briefed on such critical intelligence that potentially put US soldiers in harm's way. Trump's "response has incensed former members of the intelligence community. Not only should the President have been made aware of such intelligence, they say, but the notion that the President wasn't briefed because there was a difference of opinion among intelligence agencies is 'inconceivable,' said one former senior intelligence official, especially since it involved Russia. 'That's ridiculous,' the former official said about the White House's claim, adding that it is 'hard to believe' the intelligence community shared what it was hearing about Russia with allies like the British and not at least inform the President that it was a thread they were following. A second former intelligence official called the notion that the President is not informed unless there is unanimity and 100% certainty 'absurd. You would have trouble getting unanimity on tomorrow being Tuesday,' the source told CNN on Monday." Trump and Pence were both given written reports about the bounties.

Multiple former senior intelligence officials dismissed the White House's notion that intelligence would not reach the President simply because of dissent or because it hadn't been verified.

"You don't put things in the President's daily brief only when they are completely corroborated and verified because then it is not intelligence anymore; then it's fact," David Priess, a former CIA officer during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, told CNN in an interview on Monday.

Larry Pfeiffer, former CIA chief of staff who also served as senior director of the White House Situation Room, said intelligence rarely operates in the world of black and white. Instead, agents and officials often craft "assessments with assigned levels of confidence," which are "often presented with dissenting views," said Pfeiffer.

The 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden was based on intelligence that some characterized as 50-50, Pfeiffer added.

"Presidents are briefed on credible intelligence based on the best validation of the information we can provide, said one former senior intelligence official. "It's not a Court of law, it's an intelligence briefing."

Intelligence agents constantly make analytical judgments in the absence of absolute confirmation, the official said, adding that when the lives of US service men and women may be at stake, "we have an absolute duty to warn while we are attempting to validate the quality of the reporting."

Since the intelligence failures of the Iraq War, assessments now more explicitly lay out the level of confidence that various agencies have in the intelligence being reported, said another former senior official, adding that if the President was briefed only on things that were 100% certain, "his PDB would be very thin."

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who oversaw operations in Europe and Russia before retiring last summer, said it appeared that the Trump administration was "playing verbal gymnastics with the bounty issue" from Trump's Sunday night tweet, to McEnany's comments to the statement from Ratcliffe on Monday night.

"They are peeling back the onion, from denial to acknowledgment," said Polymeropoulos. "There seems to be little question that multiple streams of the raw intelligence was credible, with only a question of a need for further corroboration."

...Intelligence of this nature would normally be shared with top lawmakers on Capitol Hill who make up the "Gang of Eight."

On Monday, eight GOP lawmakers were briefed on the matter at the White House. Among them was Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on House Armed Services Committee, who indicated that he agreed with the idea that Trump should have been briefed, even if the intelligence was not completely verified.

"What the President and the DNI have said is that the President was not briefed, which to me is a very concerning statement," Thornberry told reporters. "Anything with any hint of credibility that would endanger our service members, much less put a bounty on their lives, to me should have been briefed immediately to the commander in chief and a plan to deal with that situation."

The US official familiar with the latest information told CNN that intelligence of this nature, with risk to US troops, should be assumed to be true until it is otherwise disproven.

Multiple former senior intelligence officials also said they were stunned that this threat had not been mentioned in intelligence products at a lower level than the PDB, which are routinely shared with oversight committees on Capitol Hill, and, at very least, the Gang of Eight.

One of those former senior intelligence officials told CNN that in a normal administration, "someone would have been ordered to get on a plane and tell the Russians to cut it out."

"That doesn't seem to have happened here. Why not? And why wasn't Congress briefed?" the official said.

A select group of Democrats is scheduled to receive a briefing from the White House on Tuesday. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speculated as to the reason the intelligence may have been kept from Trump.

"One key question is if intelligence officials did not tell Trump about the intel that Russians offered the Taliban bounties to kill US troops because they were concerned that he would tell Putin," Pelosi said.

A senior Republican official echoed that point, telling CNN: If he wasn't briefed, why wasn't he briefed. Did his staff know he didn't want to hear anything about Russia? Is this about making a deal with the Taliban? Why do all roads lead to Russia?"