Whoops.
Posted on 04/16/2021 4:12:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last June, the Trump-hating reporters who always wanted to underline that then-President Donald Trump was almost traitorously soft on Russia banged a can about a New York Times story headlined "Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says."
Now the liberal Daily Beast website is offering a jaw-dropping assessment: "It was a huge election-time story that prompted cries of treason. But according to a newly disclosed assessment, Donald Trump might have been right to call it a 'hoax.'"
This story began with anonymous government sources and is now rebutted by anonymous government sources. "The Biden administration announced that U.S. intelligence only had 'low to moderate' confidence in the story after all," it read. "Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the story is, at best, unproven -- and possibly untrue."
According to "officials" on a phone call, "the reporting about the alleged 'bounties' came from detainee reporting" -- meaning a detainee may have provided "intel" to gain release. "Specifically, the official cited 'information and evidence of connections to criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government' as sources for the intelligence community's assessment," the Daily Beast said. It compared this to Ibn Shaikh al-Libi, a source who claimed to know about Saddam Hussein training al-Qaida to make poison gas.
A USA Today "fact-check" explained, "Interrogations of militants and criminals in Afghanistan were the basis for the U.S. intelligence assessment." If Hillary Clinton had been president, the liberal papers and networks would have said, "You can't allow militants and criminals to accuse the president of treason!"
Every patriotic American wants our government to be vigilant against any malignant actors who put bounties on the heads of our troops. But this was a political narrative during an election year. The group VoteVets put out a nasty ad saying, "Benedict Donald is America's No. 1 traitor!"
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tweeted as The Times story broke: "Today, we learn that Russia is paying Islamic radicals bounties to kill US troops. Trump has known about this but refuses to do anything. It is all beyond the pale."
Hemingway also reported last July that Rep. Adam Schiff learned of the bounty allegations on a congressional trip to Afghanistan in February 2020 and didn't share them. When asked whether that was true, he claimed, "I can't comment on specifics." But the "Trump inexcusably did nothing" talking point was routine in liberal media.
The rhetorical bombing went on for weeks. On July 29, MSNBC host Joy Reid blasted Trump as "being grotesquely solicitous of Putin" and claimed he and the GOP were guilty of "a complete abdication of leadership." Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project added: "We have a faithless commander in chief. The commander is so amoral that he does not have the backs of the men and women that he sends into harm's way. This is a despicable and cowardly betrayal of the ethos of the United States military."
This whole controversy should be a reason for media consumers to be super-skeptical of any "bombshell" story based on anonymous sources in government or politics. News stories that drive partisans to charge a president with treason -- Republican or Democrat -- ought to be based on more than just shadowy "administration officials." We don't need this much darkness in our democracy.
Is there anyone who served in Afghanistan? The story is obviously fake to start with given the original Russian involvement on the American side.
Cheney takes on Trump
In her latest rebuke of Trump, Cheney openly questioned whether the president was aware of reports that the Russians offered Afghan militants bounties to kill U.S. troops and demanded the administration take a more aggressive posture toward the Kremlin.
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/06/30/cheney-takes-on-trump-346089
Of course it was fake and biden used in his campaign speeches along with hearing from a “credible” source that he said Trump hated the military. When biden is the one on camera saying rude things about them. They threw everything they could at him once again. And stole the election anyways. No way he got 80 million votes. Even dem voters know it. But there hatred for Trump and wanting a dem in office keeps them from admitting it. They don’t care this guy is dirty and is going to ruin the economy and people’s lives.
I swear, the crap certainly floats to the top of the Washington punch bowl.
And then there's the story about every Rat Party hack in the nation declaring last year "I'll never take a Trump vaccine" now demanding that production be tripled and that the nation's "victims" be given priority.
And let's not forget that the development of the vaccine was announced two days after the election...with Pfizer's CEO being a huge Rat Party donor.
The reason for the bounty is obvious. The Russians had no fear of Trump. With Biden in office, well - another story entirely.
Do I really need a </s>
A good quick response team would have taken on the lie about the Trumps comments while in France with Joe’s actual video footage of Joe Biden saying “clap for that you stupid bastards” to military members and adding “you must be slow”.
And this is supposed to surprise anyone but an Idiot?
I thought Trump got it sorted and they interviewed people that were there. But the media didn’t want to cover it. And biden knew the video was out there but denied it anyways and the media never called him on it. Heck the people asking the questions at the debate wouldn’t do anything but attack Trump.
Not for me, I am more fluent in Sarcasm than English.
“Trump didn’t win, did he?”
This entire farce of a “story” was resurrected from a story in 2010. Iran paying taliban to kill US troops. Of course 2 years later Obama was airdopping million and millions of dollars into Iran....sooooo
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39014669
This story and all the fake Russia Russia Russia collusion accusations/investiagtions/hearings, etc. essentially torpedoed any possibility of diplomatic efforts and potentially positive outcomes between the Trump administration and Russia. Damn the lot of them.
I haven’t believed most things from “Government sources” since I was 6. (I was 6 in November of 1963)
Too bad we are a country of mostly idiots now.
How many here on FR bought the bounty lie?
I seem to remember the handful who rejected the lie suffering the usual invectives.
There is a bunch of warmongering East Euro trolls pushing the stuff like this.
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