Today's news: The Trump administration withheld information from Republican lawmakers that would have undercut their talking point that the intelligence was uncorroborated.

If you are just tuning into the Russia bounty story, here's a quick thread to get you up to speed. 1/ https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1278017734031355911

Last week, we learned that US intelligence agencies assessed that Russia was paying bounties to kill US soldiers-shocking news in its own right. In between rounds of golf, the WH and allies insisted the president didn't know, was never briefed or told, and wasn't informed. 2/

New stories emerged to undermine Trump's claims. First, we learned that Trump's national security team met to consider the reports (undercutting claims that no one knew). Second, we learned that the original intel came from interrogations of Taliban who were found with $500k. 3/

Meanwhile, Trump golfed and his administration continued issuing carefully worded statements that he was not personally "briefed," by which they meant that he did not receive an oral intelligence briefing. That's important b/c then we learned the intel was provided in the PDB. 4/

So as we entered this week, we knew Trump was lying, but that didn't stop him. Yesterday, facing pressure from Republicans, Trump decides to offer a briefing on the intelligence, but only for Republicans (that's a big no no, but I digress). He tells Republicans... 5/

...that the intelligence was "unverified" and uncorroborated and anyway the agencies didn't agree on the assessment. Last night DOD releases a statement saying "DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate" the claims. Sounds like just one stray intel report, right? WRONG. 6/

Today we learn that--oops--there actually WAS corroborating evidence, it just wasn't DOD's information (see how they are splitting hairs?). Turns out, the IC intercepted data showing large financial transfers from Russia’s military intelligence to a Taliban-linked account. 7/

And as I mentioned at the top, Trump's team decided not to mention that to Republican lawmakers because it undercut their claim that the intelligence wasn't reliable and anyway no one told the president orally so you can't hold him responsible. So, where does that leave us? 8/

US intelligence DOES apparently believe the Russians paid bounties to the Taliban to kill US soldiers. US soldiers WERE killed and bounties (apparently) WERE paid by Russia. The Trump administration DID know about it. 9/

Trump wasn't orally briefed but received it in his daily brief, which he famously does not read. His national security adviser and NSC staff knew about it. The intelligence wasn't airtight, but seldom is, and there was significant evidence to support the assessment. 10/

And despite time for two rounds of golf and lots of tweeting, the President STILL hasn't reassured Americans about the safety of our troops or responded to this latest hostile Russian aggression. Oh, and while all of this was going on, Trump invited Putin to the G8. /End.