Hi. It’s the President’s Daily Brief guy.

Let’s look at the logic and the implications of the claim that neither Trump nor Pence were briefed on the intelligence assessment that Russia offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill US/coalition troops in Afghanistan.

1/10 https://twitter.com/joshnbcnews/status/1276981842026082307

First, read the NYT article by @charlie_savage, @EricSchmittNYT, and @mschwirtz, with details about the reported Russian military intel unit behind this, the high-level USG discussions about responses, and the White House not authorizing any of them.

2/10 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html

The article claims Trump was briefed on the assessment.

The White House claims he wasn’t.

Normally, presidential aides would want to *avoid* telling the world he’s ill-informed. That doing so looks like their best strategy here reveals much.

Let’s examine the options.

3/10

Maybe multiple sources are all wrong and there is no such assessment. (Neither the White House nor other entities have denied the core of the reporting, making this option quite unlikely, but it’s theoretically possible.)

If so, shame on the sources.

4/10

Maybe the assessment was briefed only sub-POTUS because it was judged not to merit his attention.

(This would be at odds with reporting just now by the same NYT trio—that it was, in fact, in the President’s Daily Brief.)

If so, shame on the system.

5/10 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/us/politics/trump-russia-bounties-afghanistan.html

Maybe POTUS was, in fact, orally briefed on it—but White House officials have decided to lie about it, perhaps in a weak attempt to avoid the logical next question: Why hasn’t the commander in chief responded to such a grave development?

If so, shame on them. And on him.

6/10

Maybe POTUS was “briefed” on it—not orally but only in writing, presumably (but not necessarily) in the President’s Daily Brief.

If so, White House officials now pushing the line that he wasn’t briefed on it are playing semantic games.

If so, shame on them. And on him.

7/10

Maybe it was in the written PDB, but Trump didn’t see it (reports say he doesn’t read it, preferring irregular oral briefings) *and* readers like the NatSec Advisor, SecState, and SecDef saw it *and* they forgot to ensure he knew about it.

If so, shame on them. And on him.

8/10

Maybe it was deemed too sensitive to put in the PDB and restricted to a memo/oral briefing only for POTUS and 1-2 others.

Then how was it debated, as reports indicate, at an NSC interagency meeting?

Any explanation like this returns us to one or more of the shames above.

9/10

Or maybe the assessment was in the PDB and other regular PDB readers saw it, but it wasn’t orally briefed to POTUS so he never got it, and nobody in the system wanted this commander in chief to get it, because they were afraid of what he’d do, or *not* do, after getting it.

/end