Russian Bounty intelligence - Danger! Donald Trump doesn't read and doesn't want to listen

Readers Write: Russian bounties to the Taliban: If Trump only gets what's credible, that means he has dismissed credible information.

This echo opinion letter was published in the Star Tribune a Minneapolis, Minnesota newspaper.

A recent report by the New York Times stated that the U.S. intelligence community concluded months ago, if not earlier, that a Russian intelligence unit secretly offered payments to Taliban-linked militants for successful attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan (“Sources: Trump told of bounties in ’19,” June 30). 

In the report, Donald Trump was reported to have been briefed about the intelligence in late March — and more reporting indicates it may have even been in 2019 — but he has not authorized any response measures. 

Instead, Trump asserts that he’s never been briefed, because it had not been deemed verifiable and credible. “Intelligence ... is vetted for its veracity, and it only goes to the president and the high-level officials when it is deemed as verifiable and credible,” the president’s press secretary (#MsBlond!) has stated.

This would indicate that earlier reports about many things — such as Russian intelligence interference in U.S. elections, which was acknowledged as received by the current administration — were vetted in terms of veracity and credibility.

The fact that the president has cast doubt on those reports, stating in at least one instance that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin instead, is truly alarming. Trump, our transitional president, finds it acceptable to disbelieve information generated and shared with him by the best sources of national intelligence that supersedes thresholds of veracity, credibility and truth.

From Jim Ryan, Golden Valley, MN