If I'm reading CIA v. NSA angle on this story right, then the IC dispute isn't whether or not the GRU sent money to the Taliban (they did), it's whether or not that money was used for bounties on U.S. soldiers. The latter conclusion, pushed by CIA (although perhaps not Haspel)...

appears derived from querying human sources (interrogations) and piecing together the data and timing of events. Recall that CIA concluded with "high confidence" the Russian interference operation in 2016 was designed to help Trump. NSA had "moderate confidence."

"Show me the intercepts" versus "We have sources who are reliable who confirm."

One reason CIA had such confidence re the election interference operation was its assets in Moscow. E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/cia-informant-russia.html

Now, I'm sure CIA has run agents from within both the Taliban and Haqqani network. (They sure as shit did with ISIS in Syria and Iraq.) So they probably have a very different picture of what the GRU's funds were for than what pure signals intelligence might otherwise indicate.

But don't lose sight of the big picture, on which all parties agree: *What is the GRU doing sending money to the Taliban?* It ain't for decorating caves.

(Added to which, of course, is what Unit 29155 generally gets up: assassinations, coups, and destabilizing Western governments.)