Several officials said
that they had been told that
the president had been briefed ... weeks after the briefly is said to have taken place when this information was made more widespread.
No eyewitnesses there, just hearsay. It's unclear if more than one person told the NYT's informants or if it was just one person. It's unclear if that that person or persons informing the informats were reporting hearsay or were witnesses. Unclear if the briefing was a line in a 20 page report or if it was front and center in the spoken/AV presentation.
It's like the ABC report on the COVID briefing from late November. One report over something not very likely--mass disruptions, ambulances, etc., in Wuhan that somehow nobody noticed. With the first real-time report showing up in December. The ABC report deserved to be ignored, but not forgotten.
The NYT story's alleged briefing involved a report. In the report it was concluded that it was "likely" (not 100% sure, that) something had happened. Highly likely? Likely with low confidence? Don't know--it would have said more than "likely", because (I believe) such reports carry an appraisal of the appraisal, at least the ones that have been made public through the legal means.
That something was a Russian agency's offering money to the Taliban for attacks on Americans.
The NYT said that they didn't have any information on whether any actual attacks occurred as a result, so no what/where/when. Or if any money had been paid for any attacks. They surmised it was the GRU, but it was gap-filling based on ... what's likely.
The information came from the interrogations (by somebody--maybe US, maybe Afghan government) of captured Taliban. There's no claim that the Taliban captured were actually present to see what they reported on or if that was also hearsay--perhaps third or fourth hand, the NYT didn't say because it didn't know. And at some point all the "we don't knows" have to start making people question what we *do* know.
The main story is that the claim that there was a briefing. But even that's at least twice removed from the reporter and is covered in fuzziness.
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