Leak of raw intelligence for political hit on President jeopardizes ability to verify claim

Washington Examiner:

The nation’s top spy chiefs condemned the classified leaks about an alleged plot by Russia to offer bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. forces, warning the selective leaking jeopardized the intelligence community’s ability to ascertain the veracity of the claims.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and CIA Director Gina Haspel released separate statements within minutes of each other late Monday night.

Ratcliffe, who, last month, was sworn in as the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he oversees the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, said, “U.S. and coalition force protection is a critical priority for both the President and the Intelligence Community” and “the selective leaking of any classified information disrupts the vital interagency work to collect, assess, and mitigate threats and places our forces at risk.” He added: “It is also, simply put, a crime.”

“We are still investigating the alleged intelligence referenced in recent media reporting and we will brief the President and Congressional leaders at the appropriate time,” Ratcliffe said. “This is the analytic process working the way it should. Unfortunately, unauthorized disclosures now jeopardize our ability to ever find out the full story with respect to these allegations.”

The New York Times reported Friday that a U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that a Russian spy unit paid Taliban-connected militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. and coalition troops even as the Trump administration sought to reach a peace deal involving the Taliban and the Afghan government. The New York Times further reported that Trump was briefed about the bounties in the spring and that officials developed a list of options to respond, but the outlet's sources said the administration had yet to authorize any of the actions. Ratcliffe claimed that Trump had never been briefed on these allegations.

Trump said late Sunday night that “intel” had just told him they did not assess the intelligence to be “credible.” This was after he claimed that “nobody briefed or told” him, Vice President Mike Pence, or chief of staff Mark Meadows “about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians."

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This appears to be typical of the bad faith emanating from the intelligence agencies ever since Trump 2016 victory.  They are doing this for political purposes and not to enhance US national interests.  Everyone who has seen this raw intelligence should be subjected to a lie detector test to determine if they are behind the leak.  There are people in US intelligence who are pushing their political agenda rather than the national interests.  The NY Times is willing to accommodate them because of its own political agenda.