President Donald Trump has claimed that he knew nothing about the Russian Federation, placing a bounty on American soldiers' heads. Still, political experts are wondering how it could be possible for the commander-in-chief not to be aware of threats the troops face.
The New York Times reported Sunday that while the president is denying knowledge, the intelligence community has revealed that they knew about the information as early as January 2020.
Trump, who is supposed to get a daily intelligence briefing called "The President's Daily Brief," rarely takes the briefing, instead only doing it a few days a week. There have also been reports that the president has a difficult time paying attention and that some briefers must find ways of keeping his attention. It's unknown if the president was briefed and simply doesn't remember it or wasn't paying close enough attention.
"The crucial information that led the spies and commandos to focus on the bounties included the recovery of a large amount of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals played a central role in making the intelligence community confident in its assessment that the Russians had offered and paid bounties in 2019," the Times cited an official.
The military and intelligence officials have been looking into American combat casualties since early last year to discern whether any American soldiers were victims of the plot.
Democrats have long been critical of the president's handling of Russian aggression, complaining that he hasn't done enough to deliver consequences to actions against the United States.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't gotten over losing the Soviet-Afghan War.
"Russia has never gotten over the humiliation they suffered in Afghanistan, and now they are taking it out on us, our troops," she said on ABC Sunday. "This is totally outrageous. You would think that the minute the president heard of it, he would want to know more instead of denying that he knew anything."