New York Times: Suspicions of Russian Bounties Were Bolstered by Data on Financial Transfers
Analysts have used other evidence to conclude that the transfers were most likely part of an effort to offer payments to Taliban-linked militants to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
American officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, evidence that supported their conclusion that Russia covertly offered bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.
Though the United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before, analysts concluded from other intelligence that the transfers were most likely part of a bounty program that detainees described during interrogations.
Investigators also identified by name numerous Afghans in a network linked to the suspected Russian operation, the officials said — including, two of them added, a man believed to have served as an intermediary for distributing some of the funds and who is now thought to be in Russia.
Read more ....
Update: Report: Financial transfers back intelligence of Russian bounty scheme (UPI).
WNU Editor: The general purpose of this blog is to post the breaking news stories of the day, and to give my opinion on it. But I feel like I am repeating history when it comes to the New York Times. When the New York Times led the story on the Russia-Trump collusion narrative for almost three years, using anonymous sources to back their reporting, regular readers of this blog know that I was always skeptical and critical of their conclusions. That is why I was not surprised when we learned earlier this year that the entire Russian-Trump collusion story was false. Or to put it bluntly .... a lie. Flash forward to today. The New York Times is now using anonymous sources to claim that money was transferred from Russia to the Taliban via through the informal “hawala” system that operates in countries like Afghanistan. Right there that does not make sense. The "hawala" system is the most informal banking system in the world that stays away from normal banking paperwork and documentation. It is based on trust, and its very nature makes it impossible to track and monitor. Even the NSA, which monitors this type of activity, is now saying that there is no truth to this story .... NSA Differed From CIA, Others on Russia Bounty Intelligence (WSJ). In the past I would always side with a news organization and its reporting .... no more now when it comes to the New York Times and their use of anonymous sources. They have lied in the past with their use of anonymous sources, and my gut tells me that they are lying now. Never forget that this is a Presidential election year in the U.S.. Everything that is now being reported, and what is not being reported, is based on that.
Update: Three years ago I would have sneered and laughed at President Trump for saying this (see tweet below). I am not laughing anymore. He is (I am sad to say) probably right.
The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020
“No corroborating evidence to back reports.” Department of Defense. Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party. I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020
The left is like Dorothy tapping its heels together wishing things to be true, except Dorothy has purple hair, weighs 350lbs, is in a college drama class acting, her first boyfriend of 3 days having just broke up with her, she's on her period and also happens to have a yeast infection.
ReplyDeleteObjective reality competes with the lefts version of their own subjective reality and the narrative they try and pawn off to fellow idiots. They constantly try and change reality by changing the meaning of words, shifting previously accepted goalposts at their convenience, rewriting history with a revisionist ahistorical view, pandering unreasonably to peoples emotions to pass things like reparations, defunding law enforcement and the destruction of statues and now things like the Washington monument and Mt Rushmore because "muh feel feels" etc.
The lefts ideology is not a "live and let live" arrangement; it's a "live this way or we don't let you live" construct. They make it so that you simply cannot share a country with them. Perhaps this explains why they have reached the point where their open Modus Operandi is destroying the country to "rebuild something better".
The lefts demand for racism and other issues far exceeds the supply and the left just cant seem to find much, so they go after Trumps water bottle drinking and explain to you how milk is racist.
Cunts.
Sir--
ReplyDeleteanon sources are at the heart of exposes...that is how good journalism works. Clearly to cite parts of what that article about comes vis the work of NSA. We have yet to hear from the heads of CIA and CIA about this in closed-door hearings, and the charge made by the NYTimes has not been effectively denied.First, we are told that it never came to the president, and then we are told that it was not fully confirmed. Bolton states that he was aware of it. This would not be the first time that Russia has got involved in helping an enemy of our nation to kill Americans:
This issue must be fully brought out in the open. Americans may have been killed because of this. Not many are aware of the fact that during the Korean War, Russia helped the Chinese and the North Koreans in fighting America and its allies. Our govt said almost nothing about this lest the war escalate.<Russia again, it seems, is helping an enemy kill our troops.
With President Trump, it’s often difficult to locate the point where his utter lack of self awareness blends into sheer shamelessness. This poses an urgent problem with the spin he is now offering amid revelations that U.S. intelligence indicated Russia may have paid bounties to Taliban-linked militias for the killing of U.S. troops.
ReplyDeleteTrump is now defending himself not just by claiming he wasn’t briefed on that intelligence, or just by contesting the significance of that intelligence. Instead, he’s declaring that the entire story simply doesn’t exist — that is, he’s suggesting no intelligence ever actually indicated anything like this.
Yet this defense is itself deeply self-incriminating. It only underscores what critics are saying — that at minimum, Trump should be taking this intelligence seriously and trying to get to the bottom of what it actually does indicate, even if the worst interpretation proves wrong.
Trump just tweeted:
The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020
Amusingly, moments later Trump reposted a tweet vowing to veto the Defense Authorization Bill if it renames military installations named after Confederate generals. This juxtaposed Trump’s defense of monuments to traitors alongside his blithe unconcern about a foreign power potentially paying for the killing of Americans.
That, too, is either profoundly un-self-aware or deeply shameless — take your pick. But on the Russia story in particular, the line between the two is not just blurry, but dangerously so.
National security adviser Robert C. O’Brien reiterated during a television interview Wednesday that national security officials decided not to present Trump with unverified intelligence regarding Russia’s purported plans but indicated that they took the situation seriously enough to prepare options for the president.
ReplyDelete“If this eventually becomes something that’s proven, or something that we believe, we need to have options for the president to deal with the Russians,” O’Brien said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “I can tell you this, if this information turned out to be true, and now we may never know, but if it turned out to be true, we had options ready to go, and the president was ready to take strong action, as he always is.”
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ReplyDeleteFILE - In this June 17, 2020, file photo President Donald Trump departs after speaking about the PREVENTS "President's Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide," task force, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. The relationship between the nation's military community and the Republican president has been strained repeatedly over the course of Trump's turbulent first term. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — They didn’t like it when then-candidate Donald Trump criticized John McCain for being captured in combat. They were angrier when Trump, as commander in chief, abandoned Kurdish allies in the Middle East. And they were upset again last month when he threatened to deploy troops against American protesters.
Trump’s relationship with the nation’s military community has been frequently strained. But just four months before the November election, reports that he either ignored, or was unaware of, a Russian plot to kill U.S. troops could intensify the tension and create new political risks.
“I don’t think he cares about troops at all,” said Shawn LeMond, a Navy veteran who served his country in the Middle East and then his state of North Carolina as a Republican legislator. “If he didn’t know about Russia, it’s because he didn’t do his damn homework. And that’s despicable.”
More Stories:
– Trump officials defend response to Russia bounty threat
– Trump's two Russias confound coherent US policy
– Biden: Trump has failed at home on virus, abroad with Putin
After sitting out the 2016 election, LeMond has withdrawn from the Republican Party and plans to vote for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, this fall.
It’s difficult to gauge how widespread LeMond’s sentiment is among veterans, but there was a significant outcry this week from a collection of retired service members, elected officials in both parties and families of fallen soldiers who have lost confidence in the president’s commitment to the troops. That’s just four weeks after Trump’s former defense secretary James Mattis, a Marine general, described the president as a threat to the Constitution.
Any erosion in Trump’s support from the national security community, long a pillar of the GOP base, could damage his reelection prospects, particularly in swing states with large concentrations of veterans, including Florida, Virginia, Texas and North Carolina.
Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., whose district includes Fort Bragg, acknowledged the troubling nature of the revelations, but like many other Republicans on Capitol Hill, he sidestepped Trump’s role.
“There is no consensus on the intelligence yet, but as Fort Bragg’s congressman, I’m deeply troubled by the reports,” he said. “And if they are verified to be true, I believe there needs to be swift and severe consequences on Russia.”
Some early reactions, from those who have seen the intel: Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, and GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney put out a joint statement saying they “remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan” and “anticipate further briefings on this issue in the coming days.” But Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) had a different take: “The real scandal: We’ll likely never know the truth… Because the @nytimes used unconfirmed intel in an ONGOING investigation into targeted killing of American soldiers in order to smear the President.”
ReplyDeleteAnd in the Senate, the GOP may use the intel to push Trump for a more aggressive posture toward Russia — something they’ve long wanted the president to do. “I want to understand how it’s conceivably possible that the president didn’t know. How does that possibly happen?” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). “And right now, I want to hear their plan for Taliban and GRU agents in body bags.” More from Andrew and Marianne on how the Senate GOP is pressuring Trump: https://politi.co/2ZlHl6C. Some early reactions, from those who have seen the intel: Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, and GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney put out a joint statement saying they “remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan” and “anticipate further briefings on this issue in the coming days.” But Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) had a different take: “The real scandal: We’ll likely never know the truth… Because the @nytimes used unconfirmed intel in an ONGOING investigation into targeted killing of American soldiers in order to smear the President.”
And in the Senate, the GOP may use the intel to push Trump for a more aggressive posture toward Russia — something they’ve long wanted the president to do. “I want to understand how it’s conceivably possible that the president didn’t know. How does that possibly happen?” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). “And right now, I want to hear their plan for Taliban and GRU agents in body bags.” More from Andrew and Marianne on how the Senate GOP is pressuring Trump: https://politi.co/2ZlHl6C.
Теперь мы ждем, пока Б.Постер скажет нам, что эта история фальшивая, потому что Путин, его босс, говорит, что именно это и сказал тролль-плакатер, чтобы собрать свою зарплату, чтобы у него было больше водки в его так называемом доме в глубине души. Техас
ReplyDeleteThe hwala poayment allegaiton allows the NYT to exented the story into late this week or into next week.
ReplyDeleteIMO opinion that original story's drop was planned for Friday instead of Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday so that it would not be shot down or stale before the the Sunday shows came around. The point of getting it on the Sunday shows, because, if it is talked about on the Sunday shows, then it is a serious story.
Also by dropping the story on Friday hopefully (from their viewpoint) allows the story to stick around 3 or 4 days without being answered by alternative press or the opposition. They wanted to give their story free run on late Friday, all of Saturday, all of Sunday, and maybe Monday morning. This is informational warfare by lies, 1/2 truths, & omissions.
What the NYT and others are doing is "burden tennis." They will make any and all outlandish claims. If you do not refute them and keep refuting them as they retread bogus claims, then they assert they must be true. Otherwise, you would have refuted them.
The NYT is no good.
For two days now, the White House and Republicans have been affirming — either tacitly or explicitly — that there was indeed intelligence that Russia may have placed bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. There is disagreement about how firm and actionable that intel has been, but pretty much everyone agrees it exists and is of concern.
ReplyDeleteEveryone, it seems, except President Trump — along with the Taliban and Russia.
Despite days of disclosures, Trump cannot get out of hoax mode. He claimed Sunday night that he spoke with “intel” and that the information about Russia’s bounties was “not credible.” Since then, we have seen overwhelming confirmation that the intel was real and is of concern even to Trump’s fellow Republicans. The information was significant enough that it was shared with British intelligence last week.
But Wednesday morning, Trump yet again sought to cast even that nuanced picture into doubt.
The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020
“The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party,” Trump said. “The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself.”
Four (4) Fred posts (12:36, 12:40, 12:42, 12:50; but maybe not 12:38 (it has punctuation
ReplyDeleteand some non-copying & non-pasting unless Fred copied and pasted someone elses' stuff.).
Is anyone surprised to see Fred post so much on a 'political' post as opposed to a military hardware post?
"anon sources are at the heart of exposes...that is how good journalism works."
People and organizations have track records. While the reader cannot evaluate each and every anonymous source at that moment and know for sure, they can certainly make inferences about the track records of organizations like the NYT that uses anonymous sources and judge their track record over time.
The "Track Record" of the NYT is getting worse and worse.
What have we learned so far. This is based on 1 or 2 low level captured Taliban. The method of payment was or is through the impossible to track hawala system. This is what Fred wants to base an impeachment overtime round on.
The only way to nail down the hawala stuff is t get witnesses to testify for the whole chain of custody. These witnesses are?
Shawn LeMond, a Navy veteran, intends to vote for the guy who is so far gone , he cannot complete a sentence.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that makes sense.
ReplyDelete"Post calls “the most exclusive, and arguably most important, daily meeting in Washington” — the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) — warning his successor that without the daily intelligence brief, “you are flying blind.”
This coming from the same person who skipped more than half of his daily intelligence briefings in his first term. "
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-hypocrisy-on-intelligence-briefings/2016/12/19/8b1fbed0-c5f4-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html
ReplyDeleteWNU,
Agree. The once admired names in American journalisn are just shadows of themselves as a result of the 8 years of fawning over the prior White House occupant and their current behavior towards Trump.
Their breaking news now get's a wait for a week to find out what REALLY happened response. Shameful but a conscious decision on the part of the powers that be.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
fab fashion
ReplyDeletefab fashion
fab fashion/
fab fashion
fab fashion/