Let's talk about Russia

And in 2036, they'll "vote" to keep him in until he dies.

Next...

A small-time businessman became a key middleman for bounties on coalition troops in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence reports say.

[...]

[ Rahmatullah Azizi] was a lowly drug smuggler, neighbors and relatives say, then ventured into contracting, seeking a slice of the billions of dollars the U.S.-led coalition was funneling into construction projects in Afghanistan.

But he really began to show off his wealth in recent years, after establishing a base in Russia, though how he earned those riches remained mysterious. On his regular trips home to northern Afghanistan, he drove the latest model cars, protected by bodyguards, and his house was recently upgraded to a four-story villa.

[...]

As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.

American and Afghan officials have maintained for years that Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and aid the Taliban.

But U.S. officials only recently concluded that a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing coalition troops, including Americans, which the Kremlin and the Taliban have denied.

[...]

Russia has walked a fine balance in recent years, eager to bloody the American nose, but wary of Afghanistan collapsing into a chaos that could spill over its borders. Publicly, Russia has admitted only to information-sharing with the Taliban in fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, a common foe.

[...]

U.S. intelligence officials believe the program is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the G.R.U. that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas.

[...]

Details of Mr. Azizi’s role in the bounty scheme were confirmed through a dozen interviews that included U.S. and Afghan officials aware of the intelligence and the raids that led to it; his neighbors and friends; and business associates of the middle men arrested on suspicion of involvement.

[...]

Afghan officials said prizes of as much as $100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets.

[...]

About six months ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, raided the offices of several Hawala businessmen both in Kabul, the capital, and in Kunduz, in the north, who were believed to be associated with the bounty scheme, making more than a dozen arrests.

[...]

Some of the attacks believed to be part of the bounty scheme were carried out around the time the Trump administration was actively reaching out to Russia for cooperation on [...] peace talks. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy leading the talks, repeatedly met with Russian officials to build consensus around the American endgame.

  NYT

And...

"The President has created an environment that dissuades, if not prohibits, the mentioning of any intelligence that isn't favorable to Russia," a former senior member of Trump's national security staff told me.

In response, his briefers -- who must make difficult judgment calls every day on which intelligence to highlight to the President -- reduced the amount of Russian-related intelligence they included in his oral briefings, instead often placing it only in his written briefing book, a document that is provided daily and sometimes extended to several dozen pages containing the intelligence community's most important information.

But his briefers discovered over time that he often did not read the briefing book, leaving him unaware of crucial intelligence, including threats related to Russia and other parts of the world.

When asked about CNN's reporting that Trump is resistant to intelligence warnings about Russia, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told CNN, "this is totally false" in a statement Tuesday.

  CNN

It's totally true. It's been noted and reported many times.

[National security adviser Robert O'Brien] called it "ridiculous" that any information would be held back from the President over fears it would upset him. "We brief him on everything he needs to know to keep the country safe. So any thought that we wouldn't brief him on something because it would anger him, I don't even know how to respond to that question."

Truthfully. He's obviously figured out how to respond with bullshit.

Asked whether there needs to be consensus within the intelligence community before present information to the President, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead," "no, not really."

Referring to McEnany, he added, "by the way, when she says there is dissent across the intelligence community, this is more than some errant piece of intelligence that might come in or get thrown over the transom, either by an ally or some other collection, where there just wasn't enough to it. Clearly there was enough, there was lots of discussion, and oftentimes even where there is an affirmative agreement on what we think the intelligence says, there will be dissenting opinion and that dissenting opinion is normally heard, because you need that information to make a good decision."

[...]

The President's reluctance to hear intelligence about Russia fits into his growing disinterest in his intelligence briefings in general and may explain why the White House is currently denying that he was aware of intelligence about Russia offering the Taliban bounties to kill US soldiers -- even though former intelligence officials say that it's "inconceivable" that Trump would not have been briefed on the bounties, which the New York Times first reported Friday evening.