Trump-Russia: Bountygate

[Jon Banks]

To the surprise of no one who understood why the allegations were not credible, the Biden administration confirmed last week that the allegations of Russia paying bounties to the Taliban for attacks on US Troops, lacked corroboration.

U.S. Intel Walks Back Claim Russians Put Bounties on American Troops
https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-intel-walks-back-claim-russians-put-bounties-on-american-troops

There were signs from the start that the story might be based on unvetted and uncorroborated intelligence but the Media and Democrats spent months treating the allegations as unquestionably true.

Now that it's clear that there was never much evidence to support the allegation, who looks worse:

- The US Intel agents who leaked the story to the Press to hurt Trump?

or

- The US Media that treated an uncorroborated and unverified claim as Factual?

Trump was given Four Pinochios by the Washington Post when he said last year that the story wasn't true. Will the Post apologize? 

[Richard Smith]

Just another in the laundry list of fake stories.  The media went crazy about this one and denounced Trump as a traitor under the thumb of Putin.  But crickets now.   There was also the Wash Post "find the fraud" quote that turned out to be another totally false story.  And the Capitol Police officer killed by a fire extinguisher.  False.  The only person murdered on Jan. 6 was an unarmed protestor.  No rush to name the police officer involved in that shooting.  It is not known even today.  And imagine the outcry if Mitch McConnell and Trump had suggested adding four justices to the Supreme Court!  LOL   The left wingers would have been crying from the roof tops that it was the end times.  A dictatorship. 

[Tom Scully]

To the surprise of no one who understood why the allegations were not credible, the Biden administration confirmed last week that the allegations of Russia paying bounties to the Taliban for attacks on US Troops, lacked corroboration.

U.S. Intel Walks Back Claim Russians Put Bounties on American Troops
https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-intel-walks-back-claim-russians-put-bounties-on-american-troops

There were signs from the start that the story might be based on unvetted and uncorroborated intelligence but the Media and Democrats spent months treating the allegations as unquestionably true.

Now that it's clear that there was never much evidence to support the allegation, who looks worse:

- The US Intel agents who leaked the story to the Press to hurt Trump?

or

- The US Media that treated an uncorroborated and unverified claim as Factual?

Trump was given Four Pinochios by the Washington Post when he said last year that the story wasn't true. Will the Post apologize?

LOL ! Somebody is a foxnoose "viewer". Why aren't you whining about the "rigged election, stolen from the 45th Victim-OTUS, AKA, the mayor of mar-a-lago", instead of about this Fox-massage? Are you inferring Wapo is incorrect about Trump's other 29,999 lies?

https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-trump-bounty-intel-russia-afghanistan

[Tom Scully]

Just another in the laundry list of fake stories.  The media went crazy about this one and denounced Trump as a traitor under the thumb of Putin.  But crickets now.   There was also the Wash Post "find the fraud" quote that turned out to be another totally false story.  And the Capitol Police officer killed by a fire extinguisher.  False.  The only person murdered on Jan. 6 was an unarmed protestor.  No rush to name the police officer involved in that shooting.  It is not known even today.  And imagine the outcry if Mitch McConnell and Trump had suggested adding four justices to the Supreme Court!  LOL   The left wingers would have been crying from the roof tops that it was the end times.  A dictatorship.

Refreshing to read that Fox News, you, and Jon Banks suddenly trust the analysis of U.S. Intel, and of the Biden Admin., no less!

If you're "in for a penny" doesn't it follow that you are "in for a pound"? Kilimnik is a Russian intel agent mentioned in the bi-partisan Senate Select Intel Committee report, 800 times. He was the longtime business partner of the later convicted felon, Manafort, (8 counts, by a jury in his criminal trial) who obstructed justice to protect Trump, paid back by Trump via a corrupt presidential pardon? Did Trump not choose Kilimnik's partner, Paul Manafort, who curiously agreed to "work" without financial compensation, to be Trump's 2016 campaign manager?

FAQ: Who is Konstantin Kilimnik and why does his name ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/konstantin-kilimnik-trump-campaign-manafort-senate/2020/08/18/b72cfd42-e16d-11ea-82d8-5e55d47e90ca_story.html
Aug 18, 2020 Kilimnik's name appears about 800 times in the Senate intelligence report. The report said Manafort's proximity to Trump "created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Kilimnik
Konstantin V. Kilimnik (Russian: Константин Килимник; Ukrainian: Костянтин Килимник; born 27 April 1970) is a Russian/Ukrainian[1] political consultant. In the United States, he became a person of interest in multiple investigations regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, particularly due to his ties with Paul Manafort, an American political consultant, who was a campaign chairman for Donald Trump.

Kilimnik is believed by CNN and The New York Times to be "Person A" listed in court documents filed by the Special Counsel against Manafort. He is also believed to be Person A in court documents filed in the criminal indictment of Alex van der Zwaan.[2] The April 2019 Mueller Report concluded Kilimnik was connected to Russian intelligence agencies, while the August 2020 final report on 2016 election interference from the Senate Intelligence Committee characterized him as a "Russian intelligence officer".[3] In 2017, Kilimnik denied having ties to Russian intelligence agencies.[4] Kilimnik was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury on 8 June 2018 on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice by attempting to tamper with a witness on behalf of Manafort.[5][6]

United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that Kilimnik was among proxies of Russian intelligence who promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration" to benefit the 2020 Trump presidential campaign.[7][8] In April 2021, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Kilimnik for giving Russian intelligence "sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" provided to him by Manafort, and for promoting the false narrative that Ukraine, rather than Russia, had interfered in the 2016 election.[9] ...

[Jon Banks]

LOL ! Somebody is a foxnoose "viewer". Why aren't you whining about the "rigged election, stolen from the 45th Victim-OTUS, AKA, the mayor of mar-a-lago", instead of about this Fox-massage? Are you inferring Wapo is incorrect about Trump's other 29,999 lies?

https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-trump-bounty-intel-russia-afghanistan

From the start, it was clear that the allegations were weak.

First the NSA shot down the allegation. The Pentagon agreed that it lacked corroboration.

Under Biden it seems the CIA finally came around to admitting that the claims lacked corroborating evidence.

But Biden also probably needed to clear up the issue before withdrawing troops from Afghansitan.

So yeah, I believe it's true that the whole story was an exaggeration of uncorroborated Intelligence.

[Richard Smith]

Refreshing to read that Fox News, you, and Jon Banks suddenly trust the analysis of U.S. Intel, and of the Biden Admin., no less!

If you're "in for a penny" doesn't it follow that you are "in for a pound"? Kilimnik is a Russian intel agent mentioned in the bi-partisan Senate Select Intel Committee report, 800 times. He was the longtime business partner of the later convicted felon, Manafort, (8 counts, by a jury in his criminal trial) who obstructed justice to protect Trump, paid back by Trump via a corrupt presidential pardon? Did Trump not choose Kilimnik's partner, Paul Manafort, who curiously agreed to "work" without financial compensation, to be Trump's 2016 campaign manager?

Thank goodness President Trump didn't cave to the pressure of a leaked intelligence report.  The media attempted to use this dubious report to coerce him to take countermeasures against Russia.  A superpower.  Imagine an international incident manufactured by the media to provoke hostilities.  A very dangerous situation.  But Trump had the guts to stand his ground and take the political hit.  We also learned yesterday that the Capitol police officer that the NY Times and other media outlets alleged was murdered on Jan. 6 actually died from natural causes.  The only person who was murdered that day appears to be an unarmed protestor.  A military vet.  But no one cares about that because she was a Trump supporter.   

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Thank goodness President Trump didn't cave to the pressure of a leaked intelligence report.  The media attempted to use this dubious report to coerce him to take countermeasures against Russia.  A superpower.  Imagine an international incident manufactured by the media to provoke hostilities.  A very dangerous situation.  But Trump had the guts to stand his ground and take the political hit.  We also learned yesterday that the Capitol police officer that the NY Times and other media outlets alleged was murdered on Jan. 6 actually died from natural causes.  The only person who was murdered that day appears to be an unarmed protestor.  A military vet.  But no one cares about that because she was a Trump supporter.   

The "bounty" allegation was a legitimate story to report on but how they reported it was a complete failure. There were no qualifiers, no questioning of the sourcing; it was just reported as a fact. Too many outlets not only uncritically accepted and repeated the claim they then used it to go after Trump (see Rachel Maddow's "reporting" on this for an extreme example).

This was classic Trump "resistance" journalism where all of the necessary standards to verify a story were tossed aside because they wanted to get Trump. It's remarkably similar to the Russian collusion story where elements of the FBI and Justice Department tossed out the safeguards because they believed the worst about him and wanted him damaged.

I wanted to "get" Trump too - he was terrible for the country - but this is not how you "get" him. The worst part of this is that nobody will be held accountable.

[Richard Smith]

The "bounty" allegation was a legitimate story to report on but how they reported it was a complete failure. There were no qualifiers, no questioning of the sourcing; it was just reported as a fact. Too many outlets not only uncritically accepted and repeated the claim they then used it to go after Trump (see Rachel Maddow's "reporting" on this for an extreme example).

This was classic Trump "resistance" journalism where all of the necessary standards to verify a story were tossed aside because they wanted to get Trump. It's remarkable similar to the Russian collusion story where elements of the FBI and Justice Department tossed out the safeguards because they believed the worst about him and wanted him damaged.

I wanted to "get" Trump too - he was terrible for the country - but this is not how you "get" him. The worst part of this is that nobody will be held accountable.

Someone in the intelligence community violated the law to leak the story.  The media ran with it as though it was confirmed for the sole purpose of using the story to get to Trump and harm him politically.  A very dangerous situation to pressure the US President into taking countermeasures against a foreign power based on a dubious claim.  Fortunately, Trump didn't play along.  I can understand why many people take issue with his personality but when all was said and done he usually did the right thing and was not coerced by the media or woke crowd into doing things that would be harmful for the country for his own political gain.  Almost a singular example in modern politics.