How the russian bounty briefing fuck-up most likely happened:

[DetlefK]

This is the type of CIA-stuff that goes into the Presidential Daily Briefing... which is a document, not a meeting. So, here's my guess what really happened.



The CIA mentioned the bounties in the PDB.

Trump doesn't read PDBs, because they are boring.

Trump never was "briefed" in the sense of a meeting, but he was "briefed" via a written report he did not read.

The agents thought that mentioning the bounties in the PDB would be good enough and didn't follow up.

Trump's toadies know how much he loves Russia and didn't want to incure his wrath by asking him to please finally do something about this anti-russian info from an old PDB that he had never even seen.



And now Trump laments that he wasn't briefed because he never read the PDB he had been given.

[Yeehah]

1. A foreign government paying mercenaries to kill Americans is an act of war

I believe Trump must have been told about this directly.

[Demsrule86]

9. Me too.

[Cha]

16. Well said! It should have been top priority!

[MyOwnPeace]

23. HIS priorities........

1. Tee time
2. TV time
3. Tweet time
4. More Tee time
5. More TV time
6. More Tweet time
7. Whatever - if he has any "time" left............

[Cha]

25. & Stuffing his BLOATED ASSFACE. Golf

[tblue37]

22. David Ignatious says he did follow-up investigation & was told by his Iintel & Pentagon

sources that they were "beating down the door" to get Trump to act on this intel.

[Cha]

26. Oh wow.. there has to be a paper trail, too.

TY, tblue

[fleur-de-lisa]

35. Of course he was.

[Hortensis]

2. Why insult our intelligence? They get the big stuff through to him.

This one was unusually simple to get through the first of many times -- because Trump understands paying people to do things perfectly well.

So don't buy the Trump-Russia-Repub lies that Trump didn't know, Detflek.

Trump must have recognized these assassinations as personal insults and abuse from Putin to him -- taunting him in Afghanistan even while they were carrying out private one-on-one calls -- because they were. Yet he didn't stop them.

No wonder expert observers want to know what Putin has on Trump, and other Republicans. Not IF, what.

[kacekwl]

3. In no way does that

excuse his staff the intelligence agencies from responsibility for not making him understand what was happening. Then going to others in command of the media if needed. No excuses here.

[Hortensis]

5. Ouch to accepting TrumpCo attempts to blame the briefers, even

provisionally. I'd agree if the Trump-Repub-Russia lies to deflect blame away from Trump were true, but we know they're not. The verbal briefings, not just the paper that accompanies them, are all documented and will prove they're lying. Also, as said, discussion in various meetings with various people will have been documented.

[NoMoreRepugs]

4. It's a Rethug trait. Rick Scott has it. His company

swindled billions from Medicare and he had NO IDEA. Yeah, right.

[MyOwnPeace]

24. "W" was warned of plans to attack

the US mainland.

Same actions taken.........................

[Mike 03]

6. The White House will attempt to push this explanation

but I don't believe a word of it.

Also, if Trump ever spoke to Boris Johnson, the subject had to have come up. There's a probability of zero they didn't speak about this.

[Demsrule86]

7. Total crap. Way to important for your scenario. My question is why do seem to defend

Trump. The brits knew....Trump knew.

[Hortensis]

10. +100. Trump understands both paying people to do things

and personal insults directed at him perfectly well. He's extremely thin-skinned.

Putin's latest means of attack would have been unusually easy to get across to Trump the very first of the many times this was formally and informally addressed, beginning back in January and continuing over the ensuing months as the assassinations-for-pay of our soldiers continued.

[Demsrule86]

27. Absolutely right. Trump knew...his excuse is why no one told me...total bullshit.

He didn't give a damn about our young men and women in uniform...

[Hortensis]

28. I'm guessing he took them all personally and may well

have whined as much to his "friend" Vlad.

[crickets]

39. Absolutely.

There's no way in hell, even in the trump WH, that someone would trust this information to the equivalent of a post-it note. Someone actually spoke to him about this, face to face. Count on it.

[underpants]

8. Someone reads the PDBs

Maybe one level below Chief of Staff.

[Jarqui]

11. Why weren't members of congress notified?

That too is problematic for Trump's excuses

[Hortensis]

30. They were at some point. Both chambers have intelligence

committees which, by law, the president is required to keep informed of intelligence activities, usually done by intelligence officials. Yes of course, and McConnell keeps Democratic senators out of meetings sometimes, but senators are powerfully connected and leaders on the senate intelligence committee would have other sources.

[Jarqui]

34. So it is pretty hard to blow off the veracity of the report

If you're in their shoes, wouldn't "what is the President going to do about it?" be an extremely obvious question that many would ask?

And so between March & now, no member of congress asked Trump about it?

That's flirting with the top ten most incredible lies told by President Trump.

And his response is to try to get Russia back in the G7/8?
That's behavior beyond Hollywood fantasy scripts.

[Hortensis]

42. And on Morning Joe it was pointed out that when the

the National Security Council involves itself sufficient facts have already been firmly established.

[crickets]

40. Why has neither intelligence committee said or done anything about it?

I don't think treason really fits on the "keep your powder dry for the right moment" list.

[Hortensis]

43. It does for the Republicans. And how do you know the

house leaders didn't "do anything"? I'm entirely sure they did. But what was it?

Let's not imagine that telling us as soon as they knew had to be their best action, just "because." We didn't exactly march to get viciously tormented babies and children out of prison camps, after all. Nor did we surround the WH by hundreds of thousands for weeks to demand a stop to the treason of the Russian asset in the oval office. If we weren't going to act, if we did, until November 3, telling us could also wait if it was a choice between that and something more effective, like action designed to get more of us to the polls.

Btw, though this story was broken to the world media by European intelligence at this particular point months after it was known, and only now have our intelligence services weighed in to confirm what they know and when they knew it, I don't for a moment believe this wasn't coordinated and almost certainly a date agreed on for implementing ahead of the election.

Trump's election has endangered billions of people, and resulted in vast, untold numbers of deaths and enormous misery. He has to go.

“On March 30, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by telephone, the first of five calls between the two over a period of three weeks, a flurry of communication unprecedented during Trump’s 3 1/2 years in office,”...

[crickets]

44. You're right, of course. It was a knee jerk question and you gave me a really good answer.

Thanks for that. I'm just glad the story is finally out there.

Trump's election has endangered billions of people, and resulted in vast, untold numbers of deaths and enormous misery.

The children in cages, the betrayal of the Kurds, the Coronavirus pandemic, and now the betrayal of our own troops... trump is a misery and death machine. Yes, he has to go.

[Hortensis]

45. +1000. Me too!

[samsingh]

12. why do people want to believe trump did not know? i think he knew.

and now that he does, has he said anything about putin? it's like his approach to covid. He did not know. But once he did, he ignored it anyway.

[Lulu KC]

15. With you

I think he did know--but in that way that he knows things others tell him that are not directly about him. If it's not about him, it just goes in one ear and out the other and the din of "me me me" makes him forget everything he's heard--immediately.

If they'd said, "there's a bounty on Trump supporters," he would have heard it.

[FakeNoose]

13. I'd make one editing change on the 2nd statement

"Trump doesn't read PDBs, because he can't read."

There, fixed it for you!

[Chainfire]

14. It is Trump's responsibility to know

Ignorance is no excuse. Trump's policies have always been "The buck stops anywhere but here."

[sop]

17. The only explanation is Trump is extremely afraid of upsetting Putin. We must find out why.

It's not the first time Trump has taken Putin's side and defended Russia's aggression against American interests. This is Trump's official Russian foreign policy. Now we find out Trump ignored bounty killings of American troops on a foreign battlefield, then helped the country responsible for this act of war. No matter how Trump tries to spin it, it's obvious the president is under Putin's control.

[themaguffin]

18. 1 I believe it was verbally mentioned 2 There is no excuse regardless. None.

[snowybirdie]

19. Won't make excuses for him

He knew! He loves Putin more than our Military. He doesn't care! He has no feelibgs. He is a walking dead person. Write your Senators and Congresspersons! Demand his removal. NOW!

[Johnny2X2X]

20. Disagree

There is zero chance that intelligence officers didn't point this issue out to Trump verbally, and there's zero chance it wasn't discussed at length with him and his advisors.

[skip fox]

21. I think you're being far too kind.

I agree it might have happened that way, but the type of information would suggest they orally briefed him as well. They know, after all, that he hardly read his briefs when he does, so they would have felt obligated to orally transmit this.

I like your scenario, but think mine is more likely (and the president far more culpable).

[JI7]

29. Trump says Intel told him that they didn't tell him becsuse it was not credible

[MoonRiver]

31. Not buying.

Someone obviously told him verbally, face to face. All his excuses are bald faced lies, and treason.

[StarfishSaver]

33. Exactly!

There's no way the people around him who were briefed on this didn't tell him.

[StarfishSaver]

32. I find it difficult to believe that not one of his senior people, who were also briefed on this,

didn't flag it to him.

He knew about it. He just decided not to do anything about it (or it was already decided for him since he knows he can't buck Putin). And now they're all covering for him.

I suspect that fairly soon, we're going to find out about one or more intelligence officers who went around with their hair on fire trying to make sure Trump knew this and did something about and were rebuffed. This is not the kind of information that would be buried in a PDB they know Trump wasn't likely to read and then just left there with no follow up or attempt to ensure he was aware of it.

[crickets]

41. 👆👆👆👆

[Midnight Writer]

36. The simplest explanation is likeliest true. The simplest explanation is that Trump is lying again.

[jcgoldie]

37. More likely is Trump didnt read it but someone did brief him...

... and he did nothing because his relationship with Putin has always been much more important to him than American lives or any sort of ideals. Now he's feigning ignorance because its his goto move everytime he gets caught in corruption... well he's just too lazy to read the briefings so he didn't know....

[Skraxx]

38. Trump and Putin Spoke SECRETLY FIVE TIMES After Trump Was Told

So, he almost certainly discussed it DIRECTLY with Putin.

[kcr]

46. Sorry, but no. There's no way something like that is buried in a PDB

with no discussion.